By Victoria Sterling, CEO

A new year is a time for creating a new life...and this includes a new life for your business. Many companies are already present on social media, but will 2016 be the year that your company kicks it up a notch? Ask yourself these questions and see if your company needs to improve your social media.

Has it been days, weeks...even months since your company last shared a post or a photo on social media? Continuous content keeps your business in front of people's eyes and at the front of their minds. (Don't have time to create daily posts? That's where we come in.)

An active, engaging social media strategy should see not only growth in followers, but retain them as well. It means people want to be part of the conversation your company is creating. Has your business stopped gaining new followers...or worse, is it losing followers?

Are you on Facebook when you should be on LinkedIn? Or maybe you're on Twitter when you should be on Pinterest. Different audience require different audiences. If you know your audience but are trying to reach them on the wrong platform, you simply won't reach them. 

This isn't commonly thought of when considering social media strategy, but passwords are every bit as important as what you post. Security is important--it keeps anyone from hacking into your company's social media and finding ways to get to bank accounts or sensitive documents.

If your company is using the wrong type of images--to generic, too low-quality, or just plain boring--in can have a negative effect on your marketing strategy. Have a look at your images, and then have a look at the images your competition is using. What trends do you notice?

Do you see where you can improve? Leave a comment and tell us about it!

By Victoria Stoklasa, CEO

Many of us in the small business world are making new year's resolutions to find the best practices for growing our companies. Are you prepping your social media strategy for 2016? Let's gaze into the marketing crystal ball and make some predictions for social media management in the coming year.

Let's get the bad news out of the way: Tracking who clicks to your website from where is going to be a challenge next year, especially if users are accessing your company via smart phone or tablet. Chad Pollitt at Social Media Today explained, "Many mobile apps strip out what’s known as UTM parameters from links or simply obfuscate itself as a source. This causes analytics programs to view the traffic as direct as opposed to social or referral."

After a glut of newborn platforms claiming to be the next big things (you can read about three of them on our blog), development of new social networks is going to peter out. RokkMedia predicted that "there is likely to be a shift in 2016 as new and promising social media channels will soon be bought up by the bigger fish in the market. Therefore, there will be less opportunity for independently owned channels to get a foothold."

Finally, your potential customers won't have to leave their preferred social media platform to find your products...you can use your Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram account as a one-stop shop. The folks at MakeUseOf explained, "As these social platforms increase the use of these Buy Now buttons, they receive a share of the cash...social platforms could help save merchants billions on banking fees by missing out the middle-man."

What do YOU think is going to happen on social media in 2016? Leave a comment and let us know!

By Victoria Stoklasa, CEO

Is it just us, or did 2015 go by really fast? Like, really, REALLY fast? Eh, time flies when you're having fun and being productive, and at Bon Visto Media, we did both. Let's look back on some of our favorite social media tips, tricks, and advice from 2015...maybe it'll serve as a refresher and an inspiration for your 2016 marketing plan!

We used the typefaces in this blog post a lot...they range from beautiful to dynamic to versatile. Click here to see which one is your favorite!

It seems like a foreign language, but paid advertising is absolutely doable, regardless of the size of your business. Click here to learn the secrets!

Click here to read the first blog post in our two-part series on how your content can engage your ideal client persona...and keep them engaged.

When the new host of The Daily Show committed a social media faux pas, we were there to offer our advice. Click here to keep from repeating his mistake.

Want to hear the story of how a silly tweet led to a free meal and a valuable lesson about follower growth and engagement? Click here!

What seems like the hobby of self-absorbed teens is actually a secret tool in your marketing toolbox. Click here to learn the psychology of the selfie!

What a coincidence...using this link in a "year in review" post is yet another way to reuse a blog post! Click here to learn even more ways.

This blog post becomes more and more relevant the closer we get to 2016. Click here to learn how to state your case without being a total jerk.

Please, please, please...stop doing these things! Click here to learn what mistakes make our social media brains and hearts hurt.

Big holidays like Christmas are way too obvious...click here to learn how to tap into off-beat holidays (like National Coffee Day) to reach your audience.

It's touted as one of the "big three" social media platforms, but people still don't know how to use it. Click here to read some of our advice.

Is there a topic you want us to cover on our blog in 2016? Leave a comment and let us know!

LinkedIn can be a valuable tool for networking, but many business owners look at their profiles and think, "Um...what?" While many professionals, both young and old, use LinkedIn for job-hunting, they are unsure how to leverage this social media platform after the job is landed. That's why we've got three things you can do with your LinkedIn profile today (or any day, or EVERY day) to enhance your networking experience. ​

To add a connection on LinkedIn, you and your potential connection must be connected in real life in some way. These can be people you've worked with previously, went to school with, are in a LinkedIn group with you, or any of the other qualifiers LinkedIn allows. We recommend finding connections who are in the same LinkedIn groups as you...you'll automatically know you have something in common. 

​Under the "Connections" tab, LinkedIn does something magical--it lets you know about big events in your connections' professional lives. You'll find a list of connections who are celebrating new jobs, birthdays, and work anniversaries. This list updates daily, so you can touch base with your connections every day to show that you're paying attention to them. Just don't use the auto-text that LinkedIn provides; instead of, "Congrats!" you can say, "Happy work anniversary, Sharon! I'm sure A.X. Manufacturing is happy to have you."

Your status on LinkedIn shouldn't be treated the same way as your status on Facebook...no potential clients care about your workout or what you had for lunch. Instead, try one of these statuses:

• Cool work projects: "I'm excited to announce the opening of our new location!"
• Relevant links: "This article has given me some great ideas...check it out!"
• References to in-the-flesh networking: "Thank you to the Chamber of Commerce for hosting another great luncheon."

Do you have any tips for using LinkedIn? Share your ideas in the comments below!

By Victoria Stoklasa, CEO

Value...it's the key element that people are looking for from companies they follow. Social media allows companies to provide value to their clients and customers in ways that they might not have expected. One of our favorite ways is to create a tutorial on a topic your company has mastered.

What is something your customers need to know how to do in order to make life easier? Providing a tutorial on that topic can establish that your company is an expert in the field and create a level of trust. Fitness professional can create a tutorial on certain exercises; business solutions companies can explain how to navigate outsourcing.

How do you want to present this tutorial? There are multiple approaches, depending on what is appropriate for what your company does:

• Blog post
• Video
• Infographic
• Image macro
• Webinar

You can even spread the information across multiple formats. (See our previous blog post "How to Use Blog Posts Again and Again" to learn more.)

Tap into your experts to create the tutorial...not just experts in the topic, but experts in how to create content, such as your best writers or videographers. Once the tutorial has been created, share it across all your social media platforms. In fact, share it multiple times in the week or month to give plenty of opportunities for folks to view it. (Just don't let it be the only post you make for several days at a time...it becomes spammy.)

​Has your company created a tutorial? What was your experience? Leave a comment and let us know!

By Hilary Montgomery, Research Associate

National Coffee day! National Bike to Work Day! National First Love Day!

What do these holidays have in common? They are part of the new age of celebrating everything. Oh, and that you probably didn’t use them to connect with your customers in September using them.

It seems these days that nearly every day there is a new holiday on social media. But have you considered how to use that to build your brand? Your customers are already interacting with the holidays. The sillier the holiday the better.

National Coffee day was about coffee (obviously) but was used to market everything from Disney to Star Trek.  You could have reminded you customers about how much they love coffee AND you.

National Bike to Work Day was used to encourage people to bike to work but marketing used it for everything from biking to wine and suits. You could have used it too.

National First Love Day was used to remember first loves or in some cases first famous crushes. (My favorite was Phil from the Future.) This was just a fun holiday that you could have used to remind your customers about your business.

When using these holidays to target your customers be sure to tailor it to them and to post early in the day. Think outside of the box to get your customers interested. Don’t worry if tying the holiday into your product seems difficult at first. Practice a few and it’ll get easier.

Don’t make the same mistake this week...

• Use October 4 to celebrate National Taco Day and remind your customers that you love tacos as much as they do.
• October 11 to celebrate National Sausage Pizza Day as an excuse to order pizza and show your customers that pizza is for everyone.
• October 13 is The Navy’s Birthday, use it to remind your customers that you love the navy.

To get a full list of holidays go to http://nationaldaycalendar.com

By Victoria Stoklasa, CEO

Facebook is the social media codifier...it is one of the earliest and most successful platforms, and it both sets trends for other platforms and adopts the best practices of competitors. Because of these great traits, many businesses know that having a presence on Facebook can be vital for success. However, many companies make mistakes using this platform. These are three mistakes that we at Bon Visto Media see all the time.

Have you seen those Facebook pages that have five posts in one day, only to follow it by three weeks of silence. Lacking a content strategy can hurt a brand's engagement, but an editorial calendar can help a business manage the content they post on Facebook. Use the insights on your Facebook page and use outside research to figure out the days and times that your ideal clients are most likely online. Then, put together a simple spreadsheet, and match those days and times with your content.

Imagine hanging out at a bar with some friends, only for one of them to stop the conversation with a shameless plug for a product they were selling. Obnoxious, right? Facebook should be treated the same way--when people are online and chatting with friends, they don't want to be interrupted by an obvious advertisement. Posts should be used to develop a conversation with potential customers and clients, not just promote a business. Try posts that educate, entertain, or ask questions.

A small business or start-up might be hesitant about spending too much money on advertising. However, Facebook is a business out to make money, and their algorithms work in such a way that users are more likely to see posts from friends than they are from pages they follow...unless the pages have paid for advertising placement. Fortunately, it's easy to target ads to reach your ideal audience. One safe bet is to "boost" your page posts with ad dollars so that they'll be seen by your fans and their friends. When people see that their friends like a Facebook page, it makes that page more reputable.

What are some of the worst Facebook page mistakes YOU have seen? Let us know in the comments!

By Victoria Stoklasa, CEO

Instagram, the popular photo-based social media app, is notoriously difficult to link with outside applications. The terms of use lay out a zero tolerance policy on spam--"You must not create or submit unwanted email, comments, likes or other forms of commercial or harassing communications (a/k/a "spam" to any Instagram users." As a result, it is impossible to automate any photo posts to Instagram--the creators of the app want the community to consist of genuine conversation and remain free of advertisements.

Then, Hootsuite showed up and announced that they were changing the rules of the game. Hootsuite, a popular social media scheduling tool, announced that Instagram had been integrated with their platform. They hyped the idea that Hootsuite users could now schedule posts to be sent to Instagram.

We at Bon Visto Media couldn't resist trying it out. So, we tried scheduling some image posts for a client. And...we were not impressed.

Here's how it works: The user downloads the Hootsuite app onto their phone, which allows the app to connect with Instagram. Then, the user uploads the photo the want to share onto Hootsuite, types the caption, and selects the day and time they want the post to be published. Once that time rolls around, the user gets an alert on their phone. At the time of their alert, they access the Hootsuite app, which automatically copies the photo and text for the user to then paste into Instagram and publish.

Aside from the auto-copying aspect of this process, there is nothing that truly automates Instagram posts in the way that Hootsuite automates posting to other platforms. Normally, a user can type up a month's worth of statuses or tweets, schedule when to post them, and then forget about it--Hootsuite does the posting on its own. With Instagram scheduling, the user still has to put in that effort to make sure the post is published on time. 

Frankly, we at Bon Visto Media like how we've been scheduling Instagram posts:

1. We create images for the client and upload them into Dropbox, which we can then access from our phones.
2. We write the captions and the hashtags and save them in a document on Dropbox.
3. The person managing the particular Instagram profile sets an alarm on their phone to remind them to post on Instagram.
4. When that alarm goes off, the profile manager downloads the content from Dropbox and posts it on Instagram.

Just as easy as using Hootsuite, possibly even easier.

What are your thoughts on Hootsuite scheduling for Instagram? Let us know in the comments!

By Juan Saliba, Social Media Management Intern, Summer 2015

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram are several of the most popular social media platforms. From catching up with friends from another state to planning a surprise birthday party, social media has been ingrained into our lives whether we realized it or not. While social media has been helpful in terms of personable aspects, what happens when social media is involved with businesses and their employees? 

According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the benefits of using social media  in the workplace can be extremely helpful in terms of widening their social circle and implementing technology that can strengthen work relationships. By utilizing social media, companies can reach out to their customers and shape their platforms to better suit their needs. This is also a great way to get personal with customers and see their products at work. Also, having a great rapport with costumers provides a great way of having others promote your product through word of mouth. 

Despite the benefits, there are some cons to utilizing social media in the workplace. The same social media platform, be it Facebook or Twitter, that helps the business rely on feedback and helps customers when needed can backfire in disastrous ways. Customers who may have had a negative experience may complain on the social media platforms and may drive more customers away or stay and watch the enveloping drama unfold. In a way, costumers can see how the company deals with the situation and base their judgement on what is happening. 

There is also the possibility of employees not being productive because they are too busy updating their social media platforms to do any work. This may cause consternation amongst employees and cause internal rifts amongst one another causing more conflict and less work. 

There are plenty of pros and cons regarding implementing social media in your business. A business who uses social media successfully can look forward to increased productivity amongst employees as well as business when costumers see how well integrated their social media platforms are.