I know: it’s a loaded question. But it’s one that’s frequently in discussion. Should I keep or kill my Facebook page? (That’s a question I’ve asked myself, given that our Facebook page rarely to never blows up the way our Twitter does.) Should you use acronyms on social media, or not? I’ve listed some of my favorite reads lately on these very topics below. Enjoy, share the love, and feel free to leave your resources and thoughts in the comments!
The Great Content Roundup Week 7: Resources For Succeeding on Social Media
Neil Patel’s 11 Tactics to Get More Click-Throughs from Social Media is a great read. Use pictures on Twitter and you could see 108% more engagement, like Neil did. Interestingly, he also says that you shouldn’t post too often. For self-promotion, follow an 80/20 rule. 20% of your social content can and should be self-promotional—but only 20%, folks.
Search Engine Journal, author Martin Beck,Is a G+ Breakup Coming for Photos & Hangouts?Google + could be slimming down and focusing on Hangouts and a separate way to host photos. Interesting news about this ever-changing network.
Acronyms and emoticons are a vital part of the Internet and many have been around for a really long time! There are quite a bit more now than the basic A/S/L (age, sex, location), TTYL (talk to you later), and BRB (be right back).
It seems each and every day a new one (for instance, most recently BAE) makes its way to Internet-land. What does BAE mean and should you use acronyms on social media? What about emoticons?
All of your questions will be answered in this blog. Let’s take a fun little adventure through Internet-land and learn a bit about popular acronyms and emoticons.
Are Acronyms Really That Important?
The importance of acronyms is completely up to the business, social site, and followers. They can be very useful if you want to say a lot with as little characters as possible, but you need to make sure you use them correctly. You can always use regular, trendy acronyms for your posts or use some business-specific ones. However, if you use business acronyms, make sure your followers know what they mean. You don’t want to give them a lot of jargon and confuse them! Acronyms are a great way to not only save on character length, but can help your followers read through posts quicker, which many people love. They are also a great way to connect with an audience by using lingo they are used to.
How Can You Use Them?
You can use acronyms in a variety of ways. When it comes to social media, you should lean more towards using common and trendy acronyms instead of business ones. However, you don’t have to shy away from using business acronyms like CTA (call to action) in your posts. Just make sure your audience knows your business acronyms! You should also make sure your audience knows the others, as well. As you’ll see later in this blog, not everyone knows the most popular acronyms such as BAE.
What Are Some Acronyms You Should Know?
Now that you know that acronyms are totally cool to use on social media, you might be wondering about a few of the more popular ones out there. I’m compiling a list just for you, and also came across an amazing acronym list from Buffer. If you see something online and just can’t figure out what it means, head on over the Buffer’s guide and search! Let’s take a look at some of the top acronyms you are likely to come across on social media.
IG – Instagram. This is pretty basic and something that you definitely need to know if you use or plan on using Instagram. When you refer to people following your Instagram account, just simply use IG instead! Easy, right?
MT – Modified Tweet. Have you seen a few of these floating around and are a little confused? It simply means the tweet has been modified from what it originally said. This is important because if you retweet a client, and then make changes, you need to make sure people know. People can get pretty upset if you change their tweet and don’t include MT.
AMA – Ask Me Anything. AMAs are trending right now. It is simply where you hold an online question and answer session and have people ask anything. This is really hot with popular celebrities and authors, and is usually held over on Reddit.
SMH – Shake My Head. You might see this if someone is upset or confused. An example is when Benedict Cumberbatch was announced as Dr. Strange – many fans tweeted their displeasure followed by SMH. If someone says this to you about your service or product, it’s time to do some reputation management!
IMO or IMHO – In My Opinion or In My Humble Opinion. If you’re stating an opinion online, simply add IMO or IMHO to your update! Sometimes this is used in a sassy manner, but other times, it is a great way to ensure people know it is your opinion, but not a solid fact.
HBD – Happy Birthday. Are you planning on saying, “Happy Birthday” to your clients online? A quick, easy way to do this is simply to tweet “HBD” their way! It doesn’t seem super personal, but is rather common to see whether a business is saying it or a friend.
BAE – Before Anything Else. I have to admit, I didn’t know what this meant when it first became popular. If you’re seeing people referring to someone or something as bae (or BAE), this is what it means. But don’t worry, you aren’t the only one who is behind on the acronym times, Johnny Depp is too!
DFTBA – Don’t Forget to be Awesome. Thanks to the Green brothers, we have an awesome acronym and phrase that is sure to make people smile. DFTBA means “Don’t Forget to Be Awesome,” reminding people that they should, well, always be awesome This is a great reminder, IMO (see what I did there?). Add this to your tweets to connect with a younger audience, and, of course, remind people that they shouldn’t forget to be awesome!
F2F – Face to Face. This is not only an acronym that is popular on social media, but within businesses as well. This simply refers to having a meeting or seeing another person face to face instead of talking through emails, chats, or texts.
FTW – For the Win. Did your company do something awesome? Then tweet about it and add FTW! This adds a fun little twist to exciting posts and sends a mental image of you doing a Mario leap in celebration.
An Emoticon Can Say More Than You Think
Now that we’ve discussed a few of the trendy acronyms online let’s look at another super trendy thing – emoticons! Emoticons started “way” back in 1982 when someone stated that “:-)” become a joke marker. From there we’ve moved on to a wide variety of emoticons from the rock star m/*_*m/ to creating cats (=^. .^=) and a shrug ¯_(ツ)_/¯. Emoticons are a great way to get your point across if you feel people aren’t going to understand what you are saying. They can also add a fun air to updates, and we know that social media should be fun!
Why Should You Use Emoticons on Social Media?
You might be asking if you should use emoticons, and the answer is yes. Let’s take a look at why as well as a few ways you can use awesome emoticons no matter if they are text-based or from Emoji.
It Can Boost Your Popularity. In a recent analysis, it was shown that, out of over 31 million Facebook interactions, people responded positively to updates that involved some sort of emoticon. If you use positive emoticons on social media, you are likely to have even more social power than you previously had. People react to an emoticon differently than just seeing a written status. I will discuss this in my next point, but with this in mind, you should realize that an emoticon will only boost your engagement, not hinder it. In fact, people might just start responding to your updates with their own emoticons!
People React to Emoticons Like They React to Actual Faces. Something that is amazing and absolutely fascinating is that people react to emoticons like they would when seeing an actual face. Very interesting! How does this happen exactly? Short answer: science! Long answer: scientists uncovered that when we see a smiley emoticon, the parts of our brain that react to a real smile fire up and react to that emoticon. However, this only works for left to right emoticons :-), not the right to left (-:. If you want to make the right impact, use the typical left to right or use an image-based emoticon such as Emoji brand emoticons.
It Adds a Fun, Personal Touch to Updates. Emoticons are more than just faces, however, and they add a great personal touch to updates. When you update Facebook, you can now say how you’re feeling, what you’re watching, what you’re listening to, and much more. Each update you add with that feature gives you a little icon that represents whatever it is you selected. Are you watching Doctor Who? You get a tiny TARDIS! How can this help your business website though? It helps to add that personal touch that people really enjoy from businesses. You can update saying the business is excited about some news or is listening to the latest album. Basically, you can just make it super fun for your readers and engage with them.
Now, Go Spruce Up Your Social Media Posts!
Acronyms and emoticons can be awesome to use in your social media posts. Start to consider if you want to use acronyms, and begin switching up your social media schedule to include some fun, trendy things! Remember, always do some research to make sure you understand an acronym, and various, awesome emoticons that can spruce up your posts. You don’t have to stick to the generic smiley face; add some unique emoticons to the mix, too! Do you have a favorite acronym or emoticon? Let me know in the comments!
Crafting original, relevant, engaging content on a regular basis is only half of the job that any small business owner has to complete on time and on a budget. The other half is represented by the implementation of content marketing strategies set in place to make sure that your writing is visible amongst all the other options that search engine result pages (SERPs) normally deliver.
Content syndication makes your job a whole lot easier by allowing you to gain visibility on various other platforms without actually being forced to redirect one dime towards the creation of new content pieces.
Sounds almost too good to be true, doesn’t it? You may ask: what’s the catch? Should you see syndication as a somewhat scary practice that may jeopardize your relationship with Google, potentially exposing you to penalties or should you actually give this tactic a try to keep your business into the spotlight? Let’s look.
Can Content Syndication Become the Most Convenient Method to Promote Your Business?
In most cases, the scariest things are the ones that you are not familiar with. Simple, but true.
Those who already explore the full potential of a correct content syndication strategy have nothing to fear. By mastering the rules of syndication you could profit from the widest range of benefits ensured by this strategy, including an increased exposure for your products, services or brand, more traffic to your main website, a larger segment of potential buyers and ultimately more money in your bank account. According to Search Engine Journal, through content syndication, you are basically allowing multiple online sources to feature your original content.
You can offer a link, a headline or the entire article. RSS is perhaps the most popular form of (automated) content syndication; moreover, some of the most reputable sources that you visit regularly, like Business2Community for example, are huge content syndication websites.
B2C and many other websites of this kind provide links and proper attribution to the source where the content piece that they feature was initially published. In this particular set of circumstances, how much can you actually depend on content syndication to boost the visibility of your content, increase brand awareness and establish meaningful partnerships that could keep you in the public eye for the longest period of time? As long as you play by the book, syndication represents a valuable tool that you can use to your best advantage to achieve your marketing goals without actually having to invest in new content pieces.
3 Guidelines to Risk-Free Content Syndication
Should you turn content syndication into a major focal point in 2015? According to Business2Community, now would be the perfect time to start looking for syndication opportunities enabling you to place your web content on other people’s websites to increase brand exposure, reach a broader audience and make a name for yourself without having to put the extra time, cash and effort in content creation and distribution strategies. On the other hand, you should know that there are several appealing paid and free content syndication options, so you should feel free to choose the one that makes more sense to you from a practical and financial standpoint. No matter which path you choose to follow when it comes to syndicating content, make sure you follow these rules to stay in the safe zone.
Apply a Few Preventive Measures. Undoubtedly, content syndication is seen by many novices as a practice that involves a certain degree of risk, because of its unfortunate association with duplicate content issues. This may make you wonder: how can I direct my content syndication efforts in the right direction to avoid penalties from search engines? According to Moz, there are three ways in which you could syndicate your content conveniently and absolutely risk-free.
By using a rel=canonical tag. As Google points out, when it comes to handling syndicated content, your goal is to “consolidate page ranking to a preferred URL”. You can achieve this goal by indicating the preferred URL by using the rel=”canonical” tag.
By adding the meta no index tag. The meta no index tag implemented by the authority website on their page tells search engines not to index this page, allowing you to prevent a potential problem revolving around duplicate content.
By posting a link to the original content piece published on your blog/website. By implementing a clean link from the version of your content that they have rolled out on their website to your website, the content syndicator will let search engines know that you are the actual author of the content that is promoted across multiple platforms.
Make Sure There Is a Solid Balance between Syndicated Content and Original Content on Your Website. All the simple measures of precaution listed above allow you to make the most of the benefits ensured by correct syndication while staying in Google’s good graces. On the other side of the coin, if your content marketing strategy is based solely on syndicated content, now would be the best time to rethink your strategy and focus on your own writing. Glenn Gabe from Search Engine Watch makes this recommendation, revealing that a number of companies that suffered tremendous Panda hits losing more than 60% of their overall organic traffic in the blink of an eye had a major syndication problem left unattended. The syndicated content promoted by these websites had an incorrect technical setup; in other words, the websites that got hit by Panda 4.0 did not rely on the three preventive methods listed above, which do a great job at keeping duplicate content penalties at a distance. Is syndicated content a great friend or a foe in disguise? Should you nuke all forms of syndicated content to play it safe? According to Glenn Gabe, instead of putting your syndication efforts on hold for an indefinite amount of time, you should analyze how this strategy is currently being handled, attribution-wise.While building your entire communication with your audience around content “borrowed” from other sources is definitely not a smart move, quoting other people and reproducing fragments of their blog to build authority, credibility and trust is an acceptable practice; in this case, you would have to focus on correct content attribution technique based on nofollow links.
Instead of neglecting your very own content creation efforts and shoving large chunks of syndicating content down your readers’ throats, you may want to let mobile/web apps and social networking websites handle content syndication and aggregation. On the other hand, it’s only fair to say that syndication has gained a bad rap over the past few years because of its association with duplicate content problems. Moreover, there are several other myths related to this tactic that should be debunked. According to Huffington Post, content syndication will not eat your very own audience. Since the syndicated content promoted across multiple platforms contains a link to your original article, it will actually help you build brand recognition, eventually giving you the opportunity to boost your website traffic.
Add Value to the Content Pieces That You Choose to Feature. To avoid a potential traffic crash associated with an incorrect content syndication technique, you should make sure that you don’t publish and promote content coming from third-parties without adding value to the pieces that you feature on your website. Sources that deliver thin content created to serve SEO enhancement purposes and will never enable them to win anything in the long run. On the contrary, this approach to syndication could only attract further penalties impacting their rankings, good name and profit margins.
Rely on High-Authority Websites to Syndicate Your Content on. You can simplify your selection process by choosing one of the websites that actually go through the trouble of reviewing each content piece manually, as opposed to using automated RSS feeds. Also, you should make sure that your content matches the profile of the site that will feature your written materials.
Keep Your Eyes on Your Content Quality and Flow. According to Search Engine Watch, you should stick to a strict publishing schedule for approximately three months before reaching a syndication network and trying to promote your content across different platforms. Some of the most respectable networks see consistency as a selection criterion when it comes to screening potential candidates who are willing to syndicate their original content. The quality, writing standard and consistent theme of your writing represent other decisive factors that any high-authority network will also factor in before giving you a final answer.
Exploring the Fine Line between Syndication and Duplication
Should you ditch your syndication efforts, in an attempt to avoid potential penalties from Google? Is syndicated content a cleverly disguised form of duplicate content that will eventually make the wild Panda slap you in the face with a major penalty? When in doubt, it is always advisable to listen to what Google has to say about content syndication. According to Google, duplicate content commonly refers to large chunks of web content across or within domains that are appreciably similar or identical to other content pieces. In an attempt to index and show pages providing distinctive, high-value information, Google has always kept duplicate content on its black list, penalizing players who refuse to stay away from this shady tactic. How does Google feel about syndication? When it comes to syndicating content, Google advises you to proceed with caution. In this case, you would have to ensure that the websites where your writing is syndicated also features a link to the original article. In addition, you could also ask the partners who syndicate your content to add the noindex meta tag to stop Google, Yahoo and Bing from indexing your content available in their version. You should never attempt to cross the line between content syndication and duplication. To avoid this risk, you may want to avoid syndicating your content with way too many websites. Internal links and canonical tags will let Google know that you’re determined to stay far away from unorthodox tactics that could trigger a duplicate content penalty.
The “craft less and promote more” strategy may come in handy especially when you count on very limited resources. In 2015, content syndication remains a solid ally for any small business owner, as long as it is properly handled. On the other hand, fresh, original content is one of the main factors that keep people in business these days. By achieving an ideal balance between original and featured content and mastering Google-friendly syndication tactics you could promote your brand in the most effective manner, without being forced to break the bank to reach this target.
When clients are looking to find a perfect copywriting agency, they will always ask what sets our agency, Express Writers, apart from other content agencies. This is a valid question, and I wanted to take a moment to answer it. I will show you just how we can help your business’s online presence, amp up views, and give you the chance to boost your overall revenue. Let’s take a look at just why Express Writers is tops and what sets us apart from other agencies in our field!
Why Should You Choose Express Writers?
At Express Writers, we like to think of ourselves as the “content company with high standards.” One of our favorite mottos is “quality content, all the time”.
We take content seriously. So seriously, in fact, on average we look at 200 writing candidates a month and hire 10-20 every month. Our staff is comprised of the most passionate industry persons on the planet, who will sometimes work more than 60 hours in one week. Our SEO Content Strategists stay up-to-date on SEO trends and can perform thorough content audits and brainstorm for our clientele content. Our social media managers can create and schedule out amazing, engaging social content.
Also, we pride ourselves on diversity. Our copywriting team has every skill a writer could possess, with over 60 writers including attorneys-turned-copywriters, a Master in Philosophy, a certified coach in holistic health, and much more. We believe in natural writing for people first, search engines second. And, we look for the highest quality experts to match specific industries like technical, legal, finance, and more. While our team is mostly based in the US, we also believe talent isn’t restricted inside four corners of any section of earth: so, some of our hires include Canadian and European as well as American writers.
We’re structured for success: privileged to have highly successful, experienced team members that help organize and manage our content flow. Our team has the ability to handle hundreds of pages in a month’s time, that come to you crafted by your matching writer, edited by our editors, and organized. Our Content Strategists can brainstorm your content for you, and our SM managers can author engaging memes and written posts to boost your social media to the next level. In short, you won’t find a more dedicated, passionate, and fully comprehensive writing solution. We believe in what we do, and it’s what keeps us driven and successful at it.
Top 15 Reasons We AREN’T Like Other Agencies
Let’s take a look at just what sets Express Writers apart and how we can help your business have the best online presence!
We’re Solely Self-Managed. We don’t make you find and hook up a writer yourself: we find the best writer fit in our team and internally manage that. Our team of editors will also put all work through Copyscape to ensure it is 100% original and will edit your content before delivery. And all of that for no additional management fee. This helps us make sure you get the best quality work that you will be proud to share on your website, blog, and social media channels. This is NOT something you get with some of our major competitors including Scripted, Copify, etc. With those major competitors you have to choose your own writer, and that can get pretty complicated if you don’t know their writers. We know ours, and we find your best match.
We Have A Custom Content Shop. Our online Content Shop helps you order content, send your product details, and get your content on delivery. It’s a custom developed platform all 100% by us for our clients, and extremely simple, easy and fun to use. All you have to do is sign up for free and take a look at all that we have to offer. Once you’ve created an account, you can request what you need and the project will start. Once you’ve finished and your content has been delivered, you will be able to download the files and look them over, ensuring they are exactly what you need.
The Best Writers. We have some of the best writers on the planet. We know this because we go through thousands of applicants to find the top. Our quality goes beyond the average writer sourcing company or content agency. We have a big passion for what we do, and along with experience that’s our key to our success. See more about our incredible, dedicated team and why you want them to your next content project.
Content Strategy. We have content strategy services that go beyond just content creation. We know that creating content is vital, but we also know that you will need more than product descriptions or blogs. Within our content strategy services, you can get a content audit to ensure all of your existing content is the best it can be, as well as content curation. Take a look at our content strategy services to see just how we can help improve your site, boosting views and even social shares.
We Believe In Growth & Learning. We are continually improving. Internal training goes on behind the scenes to develop our Content Strategists further in their SEO content auditing and curation, our writers in their SEO content creation, and our staff overall. We test our team members on their knowledge of proctored online tests to ensure they have the best training and knowledge. We also update our training manuals and resource materials for our team frequently to keep everyone on top of all the latest research.
Content Isn’t Limited to Just Blogs & Product Descriptions. In the marketing world, we here at Express Writers know that you need everything possible to have the biggest impact on your industry. Because of that, we make sure to cover more content fields outside of the standard blogs or landing pages. You can get social media content from our social media management team including written social media posts and social media profile creation, to name a few. Each post and page will be optimized for your business, helping you bring in and keep leads.
Need to Tweak Something? We not only provide you with top quality writers, but we also give you the chance to have your content revised twice. Do you want us to focus on another aspect of your company? Do you have a good topic idea we didn’t cover? You can suggest that in your revision request!
We Cater to All Types of Businesses and Brands. You don’t have to be a major corporation or a brand that reaches a broad audience. We specialize in helping niche brands bring in more readers, viewers, and customers due to our expertly trained writers. If you need some creative writing completed, we can do that. We can work perfectly in niche writing, as well as technical, legal, script, academic, and medical writing.
We Believe Press Releases are Still Important, and We’ll Create The Best Ones. Press releases aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. However, how they are released is slowly changing, but Express Writers is always up-to-date ensuring you get the perfect press releases for your company. We can optimize them for online release, and our PR writing team is one of the best in PR creation. Our clientele reviews on our press releases are always rave.
Can’t Think of Any Good Topics? Have No Fear! Along with our content auditing and curation, we can also provide you with expert topics. This can help you or our team write expert blogs on incredible topics that are sure to bring in readers and boost engagement. We will not only craft topic ideas, but will also create stellar, strong headlines that are going to help drive traffic to your blogs and website.
Ask Us Your Questions. We readily encourage our clients to ask us questions to help ensure that the process goes smoothly. Do you want to know how we can specifically help your company improve its Internet presence? Simply ask! Our expert team can answer any of your questions, getting you the best results.
What You Need to Know About The Latest Trends. Outside of our team of incredible writers and staff, we also provide you with the capability to learn about the latest content trends through our blog. Did you hear about the latest Google update and want to know what you should learn? We will blog on it! One of our top features is to do a roundup of some of our more popular posts in The Great Content Roundup. Keep an eye on it to make sure you don’t miss anything from the content world including news and tips for your content marketing.
We Enjoy Taking Guest Blogging Opportunities! Outside of our own network of blogs, we write a wide variety of guest blogs for different sites including Inbound.org, Search Engine Land, Site Pro News, SEM Rush, Business2Community, and Social Media Today. We continually seek opportunities to write for multiple industry leaders, growing our knowledge and reach.
Monthly Newsletters Keep You Informed. Express Writers also sends out monthly e-mail newsletters to help you stay up-to-date and catch anything you might’ve missed. We want to make sure you can stay well informed about the latest trends in the content world, as well as knowing the latest services we offer.
Our CEO, Julia, is A Followed SEO Resource. In addition to all of these awesome things, our CEO Julia McCoy is a top followed SEO and content resource. Her post on SEJ, 10 Ways to Beat the Panda & Penguin In Your Content Strategy, was the most read on Search Engine Journal for December 2014. She’s even appeared in SEJ’s #MarketingNerds podcast.
The Verdict Is In: You Should Choose Express Writers!
We want to make sure you have the best experience possible and get the content you deserve for your business. When you start considering hiring a content agency, please consider us for your next project. We are looking forward to doing business with you and improving your website, making it the best possible and giving you excellent results. Head on over to the content shop to get started!
Howdy, folks! This week, I wanted to talk about something I’ve seen everywhere online recently, either in tangible topics or in a thought behind the topic.
It’s the fact that “NOW is the best time to jump on the bandwagon of content.” And I don’t really like to call it a bandwagon. It’s more like a strong, sure era than just a passing thing. Make that word “era” decade, or century. Literally—content isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon.
Why Today is The Best Content Era (No Excuses For You To NOT Create!)
Joe Pulizzi of Content Marketing Institute recently talked on this very topic: This Week in Content Marketing: Why the New Golden Age of Marketing Is Now, read full blog on CMI. Besides the host (Robert Rose) being quite hilarious (including discussing “inner goddess”, the “Christian Grey of marketing” and more), this is an overall great listen.
Agency Says Content Is Their Biggest Opportunity: In the CMI blog was also a mention to another great resource, an AdAge post: Emphasis on Content Marketing Revives Agency SEO Efforts and Revenues. The agency showcased, Profero, said that “content is the biggest opportunity for us.”
How Agencies Can Survive in a Content-Driven Worldby Joe Lazauskas on Contently. This is an interview blog with Steve Rubel with a lot of good insights on how content marketing is at the top of the curve today, and how to do content if you’re in a tight niche, where it’s hard to think of unique things. Finance and technology are mentioned as intriguing industries where it’s easy to spark interest.
How To Dominate Content Marketing in 2015by Neil Patel via Forbes: his #1 first tip is guest blogging. And we absolutely agree. Then, it’s all about user centric content, instead of focusing on SEO; and more good tips follow. A must read.
And, to make sure your content is the best as you take on this era of content, take a look at this great post:
How to Do a Content Audit (& Why It’s Worth It) by Heather Lloyd-Martin. If you’re not sure about a content audit, what it is or how and why to do it, you need to read this post. It’s a great, clearly written piece about the necessity of content auditing.
