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Toronto Social Media Week Learnings for 2020

As you may know there was a Social Media Week event downtown Toronto. I attended seminars that would either add value to my current Digital Marketing Manager role or the Influencer Marketing industry. Here’s a summary:

FACT: 2.5 Billion people will sign up for social by next year.

– Socialbakers ( A global AI-powered social media marketing company offering a marketing software-as-a-service platform called the Socialbakers Suite. )

Social Media Week: Look to your community

to stay informed.

When Instagram came out with Instagram Polls, Question/Answer stickers for stories, everyone first used it for fun. More businesses are now catching on that this is a great tool to learn more about your community.

It’s not as easy as just asking a direct question. If you ask the right questions that pertain to a specific marketing strategy, this could lead to successful campaigning. Here’s an example, what if you need to confirm your hypothesis of what you’ve concluded about your communities needs? McDonald’s had an idea that their customers were eating McNuggets in many ways. Whether it was with ice-cream or dipping it in more than one sauce.

They went to Facebook to simply ask their community, “How do you eat your McNuggets?”

McDonald’s took this data and created an entire campaign around all the special ways people eat their Nuggets and then strategically planned a promotion around it.

2020 is the year of Community Engagement

For all those businesses, bloggers, influencers and personalities on social media who said “I don’t have time”. They will be making time in the coming months when they start to realize the shift. No one cares about the likes. Even the images are questionable. It’s really about how you’re connecting with your people. Do your followers actually feel you provide value to their day? What does that value look like? Among all of this, especially for influencers; we need to balance our authenticity to ourselves and our audience. Doing it just to make it? Your community will see right through you. However, if that’s your “thing”, be honest with everyone.

Spend more time having CONVERSATIONS than posting content.

In a nut shell:

1. CREATE your community
2. Identify trends and pain points
3. CREATE content you can both love
4. Analyze the engagement
5. LEARN from the data

Meeting and listening to Superfan speak about his experience with influencer marketing was incredible. This man is so POSITIVE.
social media toronto superfan
“For 40 mins we’re in competition, but before and after the game we are brothers”
– Superfan (Referring to Basketball games and if he doesn’t like any NBA teams.)

Think Forward to 2020

Trends that you’ll see come up in 2020 in the realm of Social Media are:

Added Value: There will be more value on digital content and creators will go through a behavioral change. Brands that haven’t been crediting content creators for their work will receive backlash from followers and content creators will stand their ground vs. shying away in fear of not getting more business.

Social Self Care: People are re-balancing their digital lives. Seeking out online optimism and engaging better with wholesome content. Opting out of unhealthy social habits. You’ll also see more brands promoting mindfulness and self care. Telling their followers to take a break from being online and enjoying offline activities.

Bad Influence: Yes, there is such thing as bad influence on social media. If you’re being fake, be ready for people to call you out on it. If your life isn’t so lavish as you make it seem on your pretty little squares, you’ll start to lose your communities interest. People want to relate to you. If they can’t relate to you, they’ll leave. As for businesses, stop trying to sell your products and look at selling the experience attached to owning your products. That’s where marketing has been going for the last 3 years. Experiential marketing isn’t just about events, it’s the story behind your product and what it stands for, how it fits into YOUR life.

Not to leave you hanging, but these were the most important takeaways I had from Social Media Week this year. I hope some of this knowledge helps you in your marketing efforts moving forward. Leave me a comment if something really resonated with you.

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To give is beautiful
Events

To Give Is Beautiful – Shoppers Drug Mart – beautyBOUTIQUE [EVENTS]

holidays at shoppers drug mart

It’s that time of the year when to give is beautiful. This weekend I had the pleasure of attending a holiday event at Vaughan Mills shopping center as a Fragrance expert. I took people who attended (open to public) through a fragrance experience that peaked all of their senses! All fragrances I spoke about are available at Shoppers Drug Mart’s beauty boutiques.  In case you missed this event, don’t worry! The next one is happening at the Eaton Center, Dec 2nd and 3rd from mall opening to close hours.

 

to give

To Give Is Beautiful – Shoppers Drug Mart – beautyBOUTIQUE

So here’s what went down: You’re greeted by some beautiful ladies, who go through a summary of the experience you’ll have. Then directed to the fragrance station. Here I asked people what fragrances they were most drawn too. Based on their answer that gave me an idea of which ones I should start off with showing. We discussed different scents, notes in the fragrance and before testing the fragrance some tips on how to best apply it. In a nut shell, beautyBOUTIQUE wants Canadians to step into the holidays with this year’s must-haves in fragrance from beautyBOUTIQUE by Shoppers Drug Mart.

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beauty boutique event

Based on their fragrance choice there was a mocktail to match!

mocktails

mocktail

While enjoying their mocktails; they waited their turn to get a make-up application.

complimentary make up application

Once done with their make-up, everyone received a gift that had a make-up bag, a Christmas tree beauty blender and a 20x points + $10 gift card to be used at beauty boutiques.

There was also this super fun glitter wall that everyone took pictures in front. The lovely beautyBOUTIQUE ladies were taking polaroids of those who got their make-up done.

to give is beautiful - shoppers drug martTo give is beautiful

Those who made a purchase at the beauty boutique that day could bring it to the calligraphy station. To receive a tree ornament customized, 3 deluxe samples, $10 gift card – all beautiful wrapped in a silver box. Check out Mandy on Instagram who was doing beautiful calligraphy. Here.

So lock it in your calendars, the next event is happening at the Eaton Center, Dec 2nd and 3rd from mall opening to close hours. If you post your images or videos online, be sure to use the hashtag #ToGiveIsBeautiful.

This blog post was sponsored by beautyBOUTIQUE by Shoppers Drug Mart but the opinions are all my own.

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5 Things All Bloggers Should Do On Twitter [SOCIAL MEDIA]

bloggers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s been a long time since I last wrote something in my marketing/social media series. As some of you know my educational background is in Marketing/Web/Social Media. I’m putting it out there into the universe that my goal is to start these series back up again. I hope these series will help my fellow bloggers, small business owners and those who are just curious with some of my tried, tested and true tips on how to best utilize social media marketing on different platforms.

5 Things All Bloggers Should Do On Twitter [SOCIAL MEDIA]

  1. TWEET YOUR CONTENT
    This should be an obvious one. Tweet your content and do it on the regular. Twitter is a fast moving platform. So posting repeat tweets (spread them out) is okay to do. Especially since only a percentage of your Twitter followers will see your tweets since it goes down in peoples feeds so quickly.
  2. TWEET YOUR VIDEOS
    Tweet your videos from snapchat, instagram stories or whatever. Videos get lots of attention and if you can start a conversation over one of your videos than you’re golden. For an example, I shared a short video of my plant that was growing in a not so normal way on Instagram Stories. I used that same video for a tweet to ask my followers what they thought was going on. What happened next was the natural conversation I was looking for. Also an answer because I genuinely wanted to know.

3. MAX OUT THOSE IMAGES PER TWEET

If you have more than one image then go ahead and use it in your tweet. You can add up to 4 images in your tweet and save those characters to tell your story instead of mentions (@humarakausar – is mentioning someone). You can tag the person/brand on the image instead.

bloggers who tweet

 

 

 

 

 

 

READ MORE: SOCIAL MEDIA TROLLS

4. USE TWITTER LISTS

I love using Twitter lists to organize groups of people. For an example, making a bloggers list of people on Twitter and then visiting that list to see only blogger tweets can be a lot more easier to engage and keep up with tweets that matter to you. Especially because they go by so quickly.

5. USE TWITTER CARDS

So I just recently learned about this one. You can create tweets with images that look great across different techs, i.e ios, android and desktop. Benefit, no more hours, days or months of no engagement on Twitter. You have no excuse if you have Twitter cards already set up. You can find this under Twitter Ads/Creatives/Cards.

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How To Deal With And Catch Social Media Trolls

social media trolls

What is a Social Media Troll?

Someone who creates conflict on sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and blogs by posting messages that are particularly controversial or inflammatory with the sole intent of provoking an emotional (read: angry) response from other users. – Google

These social media trolls are lurking everywhere on the web and most are full of anger and jonzing to discourage people from just about anything they love. So according to google’s translation of a social media troll, these trolls create conflict with messages, but the trolls have upgraded to trolling a few more ways.

[Tweet “What is a #socialmedia troll? Here’s how you can catch/deal with these trolls:”]

Types of Social media trolls:

Comment trolls – They leave negative unnecessary comments anywhere they see the option to comment.

Post trolls – These trolls probably have subscribed to your blog just so they can be the first to comment under your post with links to their own websites, viruses etc.

Stalker trolls – They stalk your social media accounts everyday but never like or comment on any of your posts.

 

How do you catch/deal with trolls?

 

  1. Don’t feed the comment trolls. On Twitter if someone is being Negative+Sarcastic, then you can reply in a Sarcastic+Funny tone to make light of the situation. If it’s on Instagram just delete their comment (you don’t need to see that comment again) and then do your IG fam a favour and block them.
  2. Why do you post your site links when most commenting platforms allow you to make your name link-able after you’ve commented? It won’t help your SEO situation, so stop. Set yourself up with a spam blocker and a commenting system that allows you to approve the comment before it goes live.
  3. Your like or comment won’t make that person insta-famous. Collectively maybe. I’ll be honest. I’ve seen some blurry IG pics or where the image should have been rotated to be right side up, but I still liked it. But then again I go a little like crazy and go on liking sprees. If you really want to know your stalker trolls, you can try to catch them by putting your account on private and see who sends you a follow request. Chances are your stalker trolls don’t follow you and will now try too. For those who do follow you and don’t like, favourite, re-tweet etc…relax, they either didn’t see your post or it sucks and you need to re-think your approach. Trial and error my friends.

 

Trollers gonna troll, so do you and carry on.

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5 Reasons To Mute People On Twitter

Did you know there’s a mute button on Twitter?

I know it’s old news. But have you used it?

Muting a user on Twitter means their Tweets and Re-tweets will no longer be visible in your home timeline. (They won’t know.)

tweet
Thank you Twitter for creating the Mute button. This is a great alternative to un-following someone. So when should you use it? 

  1. Ranters/Complainers

    Your typical ranter or complainer on twitter is someone who ONLY rants/complains. You can usually tell when you visit their page and all you see is text. No links, no hashtags, no images… As a matter of fact they may be using Twitter as an output to blow off steam. In most cases I would recommend to just un-follow them, but if it’s a friend/family/co-worker then the mute button will do. Also, if the person you follow usually doesn’t rant and all of a sudden your timeline is full of this person tweeting about their recent break-up, muting them until they’re over it may come in handy.

  2. 80% Sales 20% Cool Facts

    Tempted to name a few but nahh. These accounts are companies selling products or services. Usually they’re newbs to Social Media and they try to get followers by tweeting cool related facts or news. But when they start filling up your timeline with ads and sales pitches then it’s probably best to mute them. You can always head back to their page to scroll through to find the re-tweet worthy tweets. Here are some tips for bloggers on how they can navigate through twitter.

  3. Avoid Live-Tweeters

    These tweeters love to tweet about anything live. Truth be told I’m guilty of this as well. But I do consider my followers when live tweeting and spread my tweets out to at least 5-15 min intervals. You can catch a live tweeter before they get crazy and mute them by spotting the hashtag their using. Also great way to avoid a tv/movie spoiler.

  4. Love you, but your tweets suck

    It’s simple. Your good friend, co-worker or relative whom you love really sucks at tweeting. They use hashtags that no one uses (full sentence tags), broken web links and tweet about what they ate 4 times a day. So don’t un-follow them which these days translates to “I’m not your friend anymore” or “it’s over”, just mute them and remember to visit their page once in a blue moon. Maybe even reply to a tweet or favourite something. 

  5. Contest/Giveaway lovers

    There is a known type of twitter user who hunts down for contests and giveaways and tweets them all. Trying to win anything and maybe everything hehe. Which is totally fine! But some people might find it annoying and some informative. I have a few friends who do this to different degrees. I don’t mind at all. For me it’s informative and I try re-tweeting some of those giveaways as well. If you find it getting out of hand, this is a time to use the mute button.

 

So, have you used the mute button on Twitter? Why did you use it?

 

 

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Periscope vs Snapchat

snapchat vs periscope

RANT ALERT: I have no more space on my android to be downloading anymore apps so I steered away from Snapchat until I transferred over all my images and videos to my laptop. Now there’s another player in the social media world called Periscope and the Social Media Marketer in me must know, what’s this peri stuff all about. After deleting some unnecessary whatsapp images/videos, uninstalling viber and shazam, I’ve installed periscope. (P.S I’m glad I didn’t download Meerkat) With all these new social media platforms emerging, how do you decide which ones to use regularly? I’m going to keep it simple and lay out my pros/cons on how you can decide whether you’re a Periscope, a Snapchat or both platforms user.

 

Periscope

Periscope is an app where you see events happening in real-time. You’re suppose to experience the event from the broadcasters point of view. However, I can imagine it’ll be used for other reasons as well. Like live Q/A sessions, kind of like google+ live hangouts.

Pros
– LIVE broadcasting
– People viewing your broadcast can ask you questions
– People can like your broadcast as many times as they want (Shown by multiple floating hearts)
– Connected to your Twitter account
– Real time blocking of spammers/pervs/weirdos of all types
– You can save your broadcasts and share on Twitter etc
– You can choose to do public or private broadcasts

Cons
– The more people watching your broadcast and commenting makes it hard for you to keep up with any questions
– Stalkers will love this because they’ll know exactly what you’re doing..right now
– Logging out will be hard especially if you’re a nice person because it’s like having a one way video chat with so many people
– Time consuming
– As many likes as you want means it may not be very accurate in metrics if your mom is liking your broadcast a million times

 

Snapchat

Snapchat differs from periscope because the snap you just posted is not necessarily happening as it happens when people view it.

Pros
– Not in real-time (so you can delete that selfie you took until you get to your best one and then post another)
– You can create a public story or send snap videos or pictures privately
– Using emoticons, filters, geo-location stamps to make snaps creative and fun
– You build a 24 hour story of your day and can focus on highlights as opposed to one live hour
– You can save videos/pictures
– Viewers can screenshot your snaps and you’ll know who did
– No liking system, just viewers (this could be a con to some people)

Cons
– Annoying when people send their public stories to you privately as well
– Glitches in the app can cause your snaps to get deleted before you have a chance to send to story
– Offline saving snaps to load into story later doesn’t always work

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SOCIAL MEDIA COPY CATS
Marketing

Social Media: Is it plagiarism or is it innovative?

SOCIAL MEDIA COPY CATS

 

The digital age where social media has become a huge part of our generation, the opportunity curve is going through the roof for the guy/girl next door becoming famous overnight over an uploaded video, tweet or instagram post.

My Facebook feed had this one article that was being shared over and over again by different people and even made it to a few of my whatsapp group conversations. A YouTuber becomes famous and some of the videos have a word for word resemblance with another YouTubers videos. Some viewers feel cheated and have shown their outrage via YouTube comments, twitter and other social platforms. Everyone has their opinion on whether this is unethical or not. If you ask me, before judging someone online for copying another persons content and resorting to cyber bullying take these points into consideration:

  • If you believe someone has done something unethical, being unethical back (ex. cyber bulling) does not make things right
  • The person copying others online content may not be aware that this is even wrong (or not allowed) and may not know that they should be giving any kind of credit to the person they were inspired by or copying (if that’s the case)
  • Person may have seen creating the copy of the video as their own variation of it

[Tweet “Fame = many responsibilities & few understand these responsibilities right away..”]

You can learn from making mistakes and either correct or continue to do the same and ignore all negative feedback from your fans and only take the good. Although if you ask me, any kind of criticism, especially bad, can be really good for you if you take it with a grain of salt and use it to build your online image into something even better. After all, if you win all of your fans hearts, it only feeds into your popularity even more. It can even be inspiring to other content makers and they may even follow suit.

Here are some guidelines to follow when sharing or creating content on social media platforms:

Twitter

On Twitter when you share someone’s tweet it’s called a Re-Tweet. Click on the Re-Tweet button under the Tweet.

You can also start a new tweet and start the copied tweet with ‘RT’ which is short form for Re-Tweet. When you tweet this way don’t forget to also add the person’s Twitter name. Should look something like this:

tweet example

This is a great way to give the other person credit on Twitter and also you’re engaging with the user. That user might even appreciate you giving them credit and mentioning them in the tweet that they may even Re-Tweet your tweet. Especially if you added your own comments to the tweet.

Facebook

We are able to easily ‘share’ a post on Facebook by clicking on the share button. When you share a post, viewers of the post can see where that post derived from. (Facebook page, Facebook user, outside Facebook source)

Instagram

There are a lot of ways you can give credit to Instagram users you’ve either been inspired by or just want to copy the exact image and post it on your account.

  • Download a reposting instagram app (Ex. App called Repost for Instagram on Androids) Apps like this will automatically add a side bar with the repost symbol along with the original content creators name.
  • You can tag the person in the image before posting when in edit mode
  • You can also mention the original image post-er in the edit mode: #regram @piperlime

Vine

Vine has a one button share option or just like Instagram you can use a hashtag like #revine.

Tumblr

This microblogging platform and social networking website also allows you to press a button to share or use hashtag #reblog.

YouTube

On YouTube it’s a bit more tricky because there are no share buttons and most YouTubers videos are not their own original content. YouTube doesn’t have the processes in place like other social platforms to encourage users to give credit. It’s kind of like a free for all. Built up of so many videos that tell the same story by different people/characters. It’s evident in beauty channels with similar looks being created by different beauty experts, comedians with the same punch lines, tutorials teaching the same technique and more. It really comes down to the YouTuber. Do you want to give credit to the content that was created by another that inspired you to re-create? Or would you rather just create the video and put it out there because it’s different enough that you’re in it? How about the fact that the video you created is different in your eyes because you had a different approach, a slight change in the story, different technique…innovative?

Plagiarism is the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own.

With a platform that doesn’t give you the option to tag, share or promote to give shout outs to those who inspired you to create your content, it’s no wonder why there are so many copy cats. Not everyone has come to accept YouTube for what it is. Some viewers demand and criticize YouTubers to admit or share who they copied or were inspired by. However you will rarely read or see a YouTuber mention where they got their content from or who they were inspired by. Everyone wants to be an original, some with little to no effort. To each their own.

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SMXChat Recap: Successful Social Media & Community Managers

Every Tuesday at 3 pm EST the Social Media Managers, Community Managers and On-line Marketing communities come together to chat about all sorts of related topics. Everything from best practices in Social Media, new platforms and the future. This Tuesday’s Twitter chat was a bit different. Instead of the usual to the point questions SMXChat asked fill in the blank questions.

Here are some of my favourite responses including my own to this weeks questions:

Q1) As a Community Manager, my most important role is ______.

Q2) When my Mom asks what I do as a Social Media Manager, I say _______.

 

Q3) If there was no internet and social media, I’d probably be a _______.

 

Q4) If someone asks me how they could gain the skills required for my role, I tell them _______.

 

 

Q5) My inspiration comes from _______.

 

 

Q6) If I was to teach a course on what I do, I’d call it _______.

 

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The new social network, Tsu

 tsu-office

Have you heard about the new social network called Tsu?

 

Based in New York they launched on Tuesday and have already raised $7 million. This is an invite only social network that will help users get paid to be social. It’s brilliant! Considering the hours spent every day on social media networks, why shouldn’t we get paid for it? We are bombarded by advertisements everywhere and now users can get comfortable and see the worth in viewing those ads. Time will only tell if everyone moves to this social network or at least gives it a try. Some experts are calling this more of a content monetization platform than a social network. It definitely won’t be easy to get people to completely leave their established go-to networks, even if it means getting paid.

So how do you get paid?

Most social networks keep ad revenue for themselves. However, Tsu is saying we want to give to our users. Founder Sebastian Sobczak says Tsu will take 10 percent of the ad revenue it generates and give the other 90 percent back to users. The ad revenue Tsu makes in one day is distributed to users based on how many organic post-views they get during that 24-hour period. The more views and engagement you generate as a user, the larger portion of the pie you get. Celebrities will definitely take majority of the pie but king/queen content creators still get something. Bubblews is a similar platform. Also, think about this, if I earn money from a video I posted and I joined Tsu through you, than you earn one-third of the revenue after Tsu takes a cut.

The platform looks and sort of feels like Facebook, so if you’ve used Facebook before you’ll know how to use Tsu. Don’t worry, you don’t have to juggle all your social networks. Tsu allows you to post to Facebook and Twitter simultaneously, when you post to your Tsu profile page.

For more information, check out this link. (The Almost Complete Tsu User Guide)

If you haven’t received an invite yet, join today with my short code: http://tsu.co/HumaraKausar   See you on the Tsu side!

 

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Online Community Manager Tips

Online Community Manager: a growing and developing profession. People in this position work to build, grow and manage online communities around a brand or cause.*

I was recently approached by Sprout Social to be interviewed for their Community Manager Tips segment for their blog and to be shared on their various social platforms. Here are my quick tips:

community manager tips

Sprout Social is a social media management tool created to help businesses find new customers & grow their social media presence. With all of the platforms out there I must say that this platform is not only aesthetically pleasing but has everything you need to successfully manage your social media presence. I’m using the free trial now and so far, really good!

If you’re considering to be an Online Community Manager, I’d follow this check list to see if you have the skills and are prepared to take on this role.

1. PATIENCE – You need a lot of it. Building a community takes time and instant gratification.. well there’s really no room for that. You’ll see smaller gratifying interactions at first within the community you’re building and eventually will see it grow into a bigger community. With time it will become easier to attract more people. Be creative, have fun and people will follow!

2. WEARING MULTIPLE HATS – Often those who are online community managers are social media managers and manage other online marketing aspects of their companies. Sometimes it works, especially since the same online voice and information flows through all the online avenues. Your followers can pick up on it. But in some cases, especially if you have a large community it can hurt your companies growth. Investing in someone to focus on one crucial aspect of your social presence, be it your tweets/posts or building a community, works in the companies benefit. More time to brainstorm new fresh ideas and more time to create compelling content.

3. ANALYTICAL – Decisions you make as a community manager are usually based on data you have gathered through your social media. Whether it was a post that was worded differently and it got more views or if it was a tweet or post directed to a specific demographic. If you can understand that data and action it for the benefit of your community. Then my friend, you’ll do just great!

4. STRONG WRITING SKILLS – You’ll be writing a few sentences or one sentence post/tweets that will have to hold a STRONG message. Can you do that? Can you send a STRONG message to your brand/companies community that will impact them?

5. ONLINE PRESENCE – Do you have a Twitter, LinkedIN, Instagram, Google+ or better yet a blog? Because if you don’t then this role isn’t right for you. Create a colourful online presence as it shows dedication and your passion for this role.

What social media managing tool do you use and what do you love the most about it?


*Wikipedia definition

 

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