Improving Social Media Skills While Busy With Business Challenges

If you’re an entrepreneur, you are probably aware that in this day and age, not only do you need a Facebook page for your business, you also need strong digital marketing skills. As a blogger specializing in Facebook page management, I am also aware that business owners have a hectic schedule, leaving little time and energy for things such as Facebook management.

If your business is large and established enough to appoint a person (or a social media team) to manage your Facebook page, that’s well and good. Still, you are the ‘big guy’ and they will still need your supervision. If you’re not at that level yet with your business, your most feasible option is to manage your Facebook page yourself.

This may seem like a lot of work to handle – especially with your already busy workload – but don’t worry. With these tips, Facebook management will seem like a breeze to a busy entrepreneur like you!

In this article, I’m going to share with you tips on improving social media skills – even while you’re busy in other areas of your business. Let’s take a look!

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5 Tools to Create Images for Social Media People Love

Would you like to create better images for social media?

Studies have shown that we favor visual learning.

Even Facebook posts with a photo accounted for 87% of total interactions.

But what do you do if you’re not a graphic designer and you want to create visually stunning images for your social media posts?

This article is going to teach you about tools you can use to create images for social media.

Not only will they be high quality and look professional, you can do them yourself!

Why is it so difficult to create images?

In order to create great visuals to go along with your content, you used to have a background in graphic design.

This meant knowing how to use a complex program such as Adobe Photoshop or another graphics program.

Today, modern marketing has evolved.

You no longer need to rely on a designer.

But you’re now expected to be able to create these visuals yourself.

In most cases, most most social media managers are given dimensions to use on social media or a Facebook image size cheat sheet to work with.

But how do you create images that look great without a background in graphic design?    

Fortunately, there are a lot of great tools available to help you create images for social media.

In no particular order, here are five of my favorite tools for creating graphics.

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Phyllis Khare – Facebook Author, Educator and Marketer

Podcast interview with Phyllis KhareThis interview with Phyllis Khare, keynote speaker and author of Social Media Marketing eLearning Kit For Dummies and co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One For Dummies is the sixth in an ongoing series of interviews with professionals who are doing amazing things with social media.

I am very honored to have the opportunity to interview Phyllis Khare.  Phyllis is an educator, author and former musician who offers great advice about Internet Marketing.

I hope you enjoy this interview with Phyllis Khare, keynote speaker, educator, and author of Social Media Marketing eLearning Kit For Dummies and co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One For Dummies with Andrea Vahl and Amy Porterfield.
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10 Must have Social Media Marketing Tools

10 must-have social media marketing tools

Social media is a huge field and everyone using social media should take into consideration the amount of time required to get desired results. With effective social media marketing tools, the time you need to get the results will reduce significantly. Here are ten of our favorite social media marketing tools you can use.

What can social media marketing tools do for my business?

Having the right social media marketing tools in your arsenal won’t just save you time, but it can help your business make good on your social media strategy. Think about it. If you want to build a house, would you use a garden hose to build the framework? Of course not! If you wanted to build it right, you would use different tools to help get the job done such as a hammer and nails.

When looking at your social media strategy, the same holds true. You need to be using the right social media marketing tools. To help you out, we’re compiled some of our favorite social media marketing tools to help you get the job done – right!

10 must have social media marketing tools

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Andrea Vahl, Grandma Mary, and Social Media Examiner

Podcast interview with Andrea Vahl, community manager for Social Media ExaminerThis interview with Andrea Vahl, Community Manager for SocialMediaExaminer, is the fourth in an ongoing series of interviews with professionals who are doing amazing things with social media.  

I am very honored to have the opportunity to interview Andrea Vahl (aka Grandma Mary).  Andrea is a tremendous person and has done some amazing things around social media.

If you happen to be one of the 200,000+ email subscribers on SocialMediaExaminer, you’ll be happy to know that Andrea Vahl is the Community Manager for the site, so you’re in great hands.

I hope you enjoy this interview with Andrea Vahl, Community Manager for SocialMediaExaminer.
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5 FREE Twitter Analytics Tools

Everywhere you look these days, it seems someone is coming out with a Twitter Analytics Tool.  While I’m all for using Twitter Analytics Tools to help measure the success of your social media campaigns on Twitter, there is a lot of redundancy in the market.  As a result, a number of people (and businesses) are overpaying for social media tools they either don’t need or can get for free.

I’ve compiled a list of 5 Free Twitter Analytics Tools that I often recommend to clients or people who want to measure their success on Twitter. One thing to note, there is no all-in-one solution that can tell you how well you’re doing.  Instead, I prefer a bevy of different Twitter Analytics Tools – to help measure followers, Twitter reach, who to unfollow, and more.  Together, these Twitter Analytics Tools can help provide better insight into your Twitter account and the areas you need to address in order to continue growing your Twitter network.

In no particular order, here they are – 5 Free Twitter Analytics Tools that you can use to get better insights on Twitter.

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13 ways to spot a Yelp! user [Infographic]

If you’ve ever taken a photo of your food, read reviews about what others had to say about a new restaurant you’re thinking about trying, claimed an deal from Yelp! or read up on a new shop that opened in your area,  then you’re probably a Yelp! user.

In fact, Yelp! is a seriously powerful social network. For instance, if you’re using Apple Maps, you’re also using Yelp! as store information, photos and Yelp! reviews are integrated  into Apple Maps.

Let’s take a moment to check out 13 ways you can spot a Yelp! user – do any of these describe you? I can identify at least five items. How about you?

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The History of Photography [Infographic]

A Brief History on Photography

It’s hard to believe that photography has been around since 1826.  Over the past 100+ years, we have seen a number of technological advancements in photography.

For example, in 1878, high speed photography made its first appearance.   In 1960, film gave way to digital photos taken from the moon.  Then in the 80s, Polaroid introduced the instant camera, where you could take a photo and have an instant print-out within seconds.  Fast-forward and photography has taken another GIANT leap.  This time, courtesy of social media and mobile phones.

Past vs Present

In the past, cameras used to be expensive and required film.  Because of this, only professionals tended to own one.  Today, nearly anyone with a smartphone has a solid, quality camera at their disposal because the advancements in photography have helped to shrink the size of the camera, reduce the price, and reduce the need for film, replacing it with a hard drive instead.

Additionally, the proliferation of social networks that have popped up in recent years have encouraged users to share more of their daily lives – and because of that, they’re taking more and more photos.

Because we’re taking and sharing more and more photos, social media has helped us to expand the size of our networks as well as turn us into budding photographers, allowing us the opportunity to pay homage to cameras from decades past with the help of photo filters.

Take a moment to check out an infographic on the history of photography – it’s pretty remarkable how far we’ve come.

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5 last-minute ways to boost online shopping sales this holiday season

So you’re not exactly the best planner when it comes to social media. Everything is just off-the-cuff or when you get around to doing it.  Although the clock is ticking on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, there’s still time for you to leverage your network of friends, fans and followers this holiday season to help boost your online sales.

Instead of throwing in the towel on holiday shopping and missing out on online sales for your business, I’ve put together a collection of 5 last-minute ways you can give your online shopping sales a boost.

What’s great is that these are items you can start implementing today or even tomorrow (after you’ve had your fill of Turkey and stuffing).

Remember, if you have trouble implementing any of these items, don’t hesitate to contact me for help.

Let’s get started with 5 last-minute ways you can give your online store a boost in website traffic and online sales this holiday season.

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6 Useful Pinterest Tools to improve engagement and get more repins

In just 2 short years, Pinterest has rocketed to the top of many users favorite social networks.  Weekly visits to Pinterest jumped 2,183% – a staggering increase, given its short life. So how can you take advantage of this popular social network without spending all of your time doing it?

In this article we have compiled 6 useful tools for Pinterest to help you create engaging content, schedule pins, curate pins about your brand, and set Pinterest alerts for your website. Together, you now have a powerful toolbox full of userful Pinterest tools to help you grow your engagement, increase your influence with others and get more repins on Pinterest.

Check out these 6  Pinterest tools to help you create more engaging content and get more repins!

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