5 Basic Social Media Tips to Revamp Your Brand

Stuck in a virtual rut? Can't seem to gain any online traction?

Or did you stick your virtual social-media footprint in your virtual Twitter mouth? It's time for a social-media makeover.

Whether your engagement lags or you have a mess to clean up, here are a few tips and tricks to get that lifeblood transfusion for your social media presence.

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How the 'Social Workforce' Can Power Brand Advocacy

Is the day coming when we're going to earn raises for re-tweets?

Savvy brands like Dell, Oracle, Intel and Accenture think the future of marketing is on social media and their best advocates are their own employees, but the move to employee advocacy is raising a lot of questions: How do you properly incentivize advocacy? What should employees share on social? How will this change the content of social networks? What types of companies can actually make this work?

There's a lot in the air with employee advocacy, and here's my read: brands can only pull it off if employees love the company.

To understand this, first look at the reasons why companies have embraced employee advocacy and how they are structuring their programs.

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Pace Salsa Social Media Meltdown Was A Hoax

UPDATE: Well the whole thing was a prank played on Kyle Kinane by fellow comedian Randy Liedtke, host of the Bone Zone prank podcast. So at the end of the day, it was just two comedians having fun at the expense of the rest of us. And Campbell's Soup has confirmed @Pace_Foods (which has been active since August...talk about a long con!) is not a Campbell's or Pace Foods Twitter account. Kinane says he was not in on the prank but we don't know what to believe at this point.

Original Story:

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Pace Salsa Deletes Twitter Account After Insane (Fake) Online Meltdown

UPDATE: Well the whole thing was a prank played on Kyle Kinane by fellow comedian Randy Liedtke, host of the Bone Zone prank podcast. So at the end of the day, it was just two comedians having fun at the expense of the rest of us. And Campbell's Soup has confirmed @Pace_Foods (which has been active since August...talk about a long con!) is not a Campbell's or Pace Foods Twitter account. Kinane says he was not in on the prank but we don't know what to believe at this point.

Original Story:

This, bay far, has to be the worst (best) Twitter-based brand implosion we've ever seen. Over the weekend, Twitter user Kyle Kinane (@kylekinane) struck up a conversation with Pace Foods (@Pace_Foods) and things quickly turned ugly. Kinane taunted the account to prove it was simply a bot responding to tweets. Then some humans on the Pace side of things became involved. And it got even uglier.

The story has everything a great thriller would have. Account impersonation. Account hijacking. A fake account created by Pace Foods to try to get an employee fired. Lying. Deception. Humor. A brand suspending its Twitter account. Everything you could ever want in a social media flame out.

Rather than recreate the entire conversation here -- after all why duplicate efforts when you can just link...which, of course is the beauty of the internet -- you can read all the delicious details and peruse a timeline of events over at Huffington Post.

5 Big Brand Social Media Experts Share Their Secrets

To help you craft powerful social marketing campaigns that drive awesome results, we brought together a team of five leading brand strategists to answer five pressing social questions.

• What are the factors your company considers before launching a social campaign?
• How has social integration evolved within your organization?
• How do you think social will influence your campaigns in the future?
• Why is it important to involve your audience with your company?
• What advice would you share with someone who is developing a social campaign?

Top Five Mistakes to Avoid When Creating An Infographic

Justin Beegel, CEO of Infographic World -- yes, there is such a company -- has identified the top five mistakes companies make when creating infographic campaigns. And, of course, what you should do to avoid those mistakes.

According to Google, searches for infographics have increased 800% in the last two years. with so many infogrphics floating around out there, you might want to takes every possible step to insure yours stands out from the crowd.

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How to Create Content That Doesn't Stink

When was the last time you were enthralled by B2B "content?"

If you're struggling to remember, or are having daymares about your own content, the first thing you need to do is stop thinking of content as just "filler," like packing peanuts or bubble wrap.

Visiting a website with filler content is a lot like walking into a living room and finding a coffee table book like "Extraordinary Chickens" or "United States Coinage: A Study By Type." As a visitor, you're under no obligation to read either book, but you have to question the judgment of the person who chose them. In other words, I would argue that bad content is worse than a lack of content.

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4 Ways Social Media Can Build Brand Awareness

Using social media to build brand awareness is a primary goal of most social media marketers. Hundreds of millions of people are talking, learning and engaging through social media channels. If you don't have a presence in social media, your company is missing what's become a fundamental communication channel in the marketing mix.

It's arguable that there isn't a single company or organization that doesn't have brand awareness as one of its core organizational goals. Social media has quickly become one the best ways to reach large audiences who are hungry for information and conversation. For professional communicators, having social media as a tool in the arsenal for building brand awareness is no longer a nice to have. It's a must have.

Download this Spreadfast report, Social Media Quick Guide: Building Brand Awareness, now to make sure you're properly using social media to build your brand.

The Definitive Guide to Corporate Blogging for Marketers

Blogging. For one contingent of marketers, pumping out posts on the company blog is their favorite part of the day; an opportunity to muse about industry news, highlight their product, and release creative fuel that is otherwise bottled up. For other marketers, blogging is the chore in the way of getting "more important" work accomplished. In other words, writing daily posts is an endless nuisance, like listening to "The Song That Never Ends."

Consider why you should be a member of the former group:

• B2B marketers who use blogs generate 67% more leads per month than those who do not.
• B2C companies that blog generate 88% more leads per month than those who do not.
• 92% of companies who blog multiple times per day have acquired a customer from their blog.
• 57% of companies with a blog have acquired a customer from their blog.

10 Ways User Generated Video Can Boost Your Brand

Smart marketers understand the many benefits of video -- increased engagement, increased time on site, increased click-through, increased conversion rate to name a few. As smartphone adoption increases placing a video camera in everyone's hands and services like Vine and Instagram make video sharing seamless, the amount of user-generated video has soared.

But how does a marketer crowdsource, capture, curate and leverage all this content? In this SparkReel whitepaper entitled How to Be Successful With User Generated Video, you will learn 10 ways your brand can encourage fans to create video and how to use those videos to support your brand's marketing goals.

Download this whitepaper now and ensure your brand is capitalizing on user-generated video.