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March 1, 2018 by admin Leave a Comment

Why marcoms pros should get Facebook Blueprint certification

Training for  Facebook Blueprint Certification  gives marcoms pros the skills to maximize business on Facebook. It provides the confidence (and credentials!) to promote a message, product or service by understanding who, when and how to connect – strategically and effectively.

There are currently two certifications for two specific areas of expertise – Facebook Certified Buying Professional and Facebook Certified Planning Professional. Now, for the first time in Ottawa, marketing and communications pros can prepare for both of these exams by taking the Facebook Marketing Foundations course offered by TRUEdotACADEMY.

Certification requires advanced competency in the following:

Facebook Certified Buying Professional

  • Managing Facebook PagesFacebook training
  • Selecting and using Facebook advertising objectives
  • Managing, creating and purchasing Facebook ads
  • Targeting audiences for maximum impact
  • Improving performance and delivery via the ad auction
  • Meeting and reporting ad KPIs
  • Understanding and testing the Facebook Pixel and SDK
  • Leveraging consumer insights and the product catalog
  • Troubleshooting ad issues

Facebook Certified Planning Professional

  • Managing Facebook Pages
  • Selecting and using Facebook advertising objectives
  • Targeting audiences for maximum impact
  • Utilizing Audience Insights
  • Optimizing reach and frequency
  • Implementing planning strategy and best practices
  • Understanding Facebook’s measurement solutions
  • Thorough understanding of how Facebook products can be used in advertising and communication strategies

Those who pass the exam,  get the badge to prove it. This digital badge can be shared readily on social media, websites or even on a resume and email signature. It’s certifiable proof that someone is skilled and competent in the marketing potential of Facebook.

Ready get Blueprint-certified?

A smart first step is to sign up for the Facebook Marketing Foundations training at TRUEdotAcademy.

Filed Under: Facebook, Marketing, Ottawa Tagged With: certification, Facebook Blueprint, Ottawa, training

January 29, 2018 by sherrilynne Leave a Comment

What every consultant should know about social media analytics

The kind of people who are attracted to a career in PR tend to be ‘right-brained’, that is intuitive, creative and subjective. That’s why they are great at relationships, writing and coming up with inventive campaign ideas.

These are essential skills and talents, but to be a successful social media consultant you must add some ‘left-brain’ qualities. It takes being logical, objective and analytical too. This is because it’s essential to be able to take data and turn it into actionable insight.

social media analytics
Photo by William Iven on Unsplash

Every time someone does something online it creates a data point. Every website visit, each like, every retweet or share, will leave a digital footprint. The job of the analyst is to gather this data and pull together a cohesive picture to identify trends and patterns.

Analyst skills and aptitudes

Effective social media analysis takes the right combination of hard skills and softer aptitudes. Click To Tweet The number one skill required is numeracy. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius but does require the ability to understand and work with numbers. Linguistics skills are important too. Understanding how people use language and the basics of syntax, phonetics and semantics all come into play.

Understanding human behavior and relationships is helpful in interpreting how and why people act, think and feel. Storytelling is important when it comes to creating reports that paint a picture of the story being told in the numbers.

And of course, software skills are paramount. A good social media consultant will be au fait with:

  • Google Analytics and Tag Manager
  • MS Excel
  • Native platform analytics including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Snap.
  • Social listening tools such as Cision, Sysomos, Reddit Keyword Monitor Pro, Streamview for Instagram, Keyhole and Snapalitics, among others.

A social media consultant brings other aptitudes to the analysis piece too. Curiosity and creativity drive analysis in surfacing relevant trends and patterns. The ability to focus is important when it comes to pouring over thousands of posts and interactions. So is adaptability. Social media trends, platforms and technology are all always changing.

Analysis plays an important role every day in the life of a social media consultant. Daily monitoring is a foundational activity. Real-time social media intelligence supports service and sales along with innovation and development. It helps build advocate and brand relationships. It provides a competitive advantage and the agility to adjust campaigns and activities on the fly.

Social media audits

In regular audits, a social media consultant will examine key performance indicators (costs, sales, customer satisfaction) alongside social media metrics (reach, engagement, conversions).  An audit will include audience analysis. It will check channel performance and return on investment.

A well-rounded social media consultant will have a bachelor’s degree and/or a relevant college diploma.  Skilled analysts will also have industry certifications, for example Google Analytics, Facebook Blueprint, Twitter Flight School, Hootsuite Academy, and others.

The best social media consultants or teams are a perfect blend of left- and right-brained. Click To Tweet This balance provides both the creativity and smart insights to plan and put in place effective programs and campaigns. Find out more by filling in this form.

Filed Under: Featured, Headline, Ottawa, Social Media Tagged With: analytics, Ottawa, skills consultant, Social Media

January 23, 2018 by sherrilynne Leave a Comment

Must have graphic design skills for social media consultants

Great social media consultants don’t have to be RGD-certified, but they do need to have considerable design know-how. They should also have some basic design skills to bring to marketing and communications projects.

It takes a lot of design knowledge to develop a social media strategy and plan a program. For example, there are dozens (probably 100s) of format requirements for the various social networks and platforms.  Getting such basics wrong could impair the impact of an image and could reflect poorly on a brand.

Photo and image selection are key design skills for social media consultants too. There are a lot of free stock photo libraries available online, but what makes an image effective? Considerations include:

  • where and how the image will be used
  • contrast requirements for text overlay
  • colour choice for impact
  • how people are featured

Part of this is understanding how people use and view digital content, often referred to as the user experience (UX). A great social media consultant needs to be able to guide the development of content that is useful, findable and accessible. Click To Tweet

Social media consultants need to have branding competencies to be able to devise naming conventions and establish tones of voice, social lexicons and content reflecting the right look and feel.

Graphic design skills for social media content
Photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash

Design expert collaboration

Social media consultants often work closely with graphic designers on more complex campaigns and programs. Being able to speak their language means understanding basic design concepts. The role of the golden ratio in guiding shape and the rule of thirds in composition are just two examples. Knowing typography basics is a good idea too. This includes an awareness of text hierarchies, how kerning, leading and tracking work and how to deal with orphans & widows.

Then there is the complex subject of colour. A social media consultant should understand palettes, know about the Pantone system and have the basics of colour theory. Click To Tweet This will enhance collaboration with graphic designers and lead to better, more effective content.

Being an imagery content maker

No one expects a social media consultant to be a graphic designer or web developer, but having experience in using website content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress or Drupal is important. Two essential activities include publishing content online and setting up effective landing pages. Knowledge of the following software will allow a social media consultant to create shareable images, videos, gifs and more:

  • Adobe InDesign for document layout
  • Adobe Photoshop to edit images
  • Adobe Premiere Pro to edit videos
  • YouTube Creator Studio Video Manager to make basic video edits

There’s a whole range of additional online tools that a good social media consultant can use to develop visual content. Stencil, Snappa, Canva,  Visme and PromoRepublic are used to create memes, infographics, social and display ads, etc. Over and PicMonkey allow a social media consultant to edit photos easily.

Those are a few examples, but there are hundreds of design tools that support smart social media consultants.  Post your favourites in the comments below!

*This story contains endorsements for products and services, which means when you click on a link that I recommend, I may receive a commission. Not every link is an affiliate link, but some are.

Filed Under: Marketing, Ottawa, public relations, Social Media Tagged With: Content marketing, design skills, Ottawa, Social Media

December 19, 2017 by sherrilynne Leave a Comment

Top five: Facebook users can now hit ‘snooze’

Headline for Top five: Facebook users can now hit 'snooze'
 REPORT

There is no 'holiday lull' in social media! Facebook, Instagram, Microsoft, Twitter have launched new features and/or platforms.

1

Facebook users can now hit 'snooze'

Dec 17, 2017
Facebook users can now hit 'snooze'

Facebook now allows users to ‘hit the snooze button’. It means people can temporarily unfollow a person, Page or group for 30 days. This is a risk for brands posting too often or posting boring or salesy content.

2

Twitter is sporting some cool new 'threads'

Dec 17, 2017
Twitter is sporting some cool new 'threads'

New Twitter threads are here. By tapping the plus button when composing a tweet, users can connect many tweets and publish the thread together. Long form content has come to Twitter and provides new opportunities for engagement to brands.

3

Is Microsoft taking on TripAdvisor?

Dec 17, 2017
Is Microsoft taking on TripAdvisor?

A new travel app from Microsoft, Outings, helps explorers discover and search for interesting places near and far and is available for iOS and Android. Travel and local content providers are invited to connect with the Outings team about providing content for the app.

4

More evidence that blogging delivers real content marketing results

Dec 17, 2017
More evidence that blogging delivers real content marketing results

A whopping 85 per cent of bloggers report positive results from content marketing. This infographic nicely summarizes blogging trends and best practices for 2018.

5

Instagram is making the holidays a bit more fun

Dec 17, 2017
Instagram is making the holidays a bit more fun

Instagram is introducing four new creative tools. Users can now superzoom videos and use festive face filters and holiday stickers. iPhone users have new colour filters.

Contact me to put the latest innovation in social media to work for you.

Filed Under: Facebook, Featured, Headline, Ottawa, Social Media Tagged With: Blogging, Facebook, Instagram, Ottawa, Outings, Social Media, Twitter

June 30, 2015 by sherrilynne Leave a Comment

Hangover weather from the Ottawa Citizen

The Ottawa Citizen’s reporting style is on often seen as being funny, quirky and edgy, but it looks like this government-town newspaper has discovered the art of click baiting.Clickbait for Ottawa Citizen

Writers at the Ottawa Citizen are taking a lesson from BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post when it comes to headlines and social media updates. And why not? Its website depends on advertiser income so the need to drive traffic is great; the competition for people’s attention is even greater.  The Citizen is being clever about it too.

Anyone glancing at their Facebook news feed this morning might have been surprised to read this update: “Forecast: Today is expected to be like being hungover in line at a suburban Starbucks drive-thru”.

The narrative is snappy and interesting. Who would expect this from a Citizen weather report?

The forecast today is expected to be very forgettable. Not bad, not good, just average. Expect some clouds this morning, however things should clear up by noon. The expected high is a pedestrian 7 C. The sky will be clear tonight, with a (kind of crappy) low of -5 C. Ottawa is serving us up a plain cheeseburger. No extras. Not even mayo.

…And you know what? We’re fine with today being average. It snowed yesterday, and that sucked. We’re fine with some weather that’s very similar to being hungover in line at a suburban Starbucks drive-thru — a bit of a headache with a very minimal payout.

There is no boring weather map either. Instead, a cute photo of a goat in wellies is included.

Weather as click bait? It’s an excellent choice! It’s popular, important and low-cost content that is sure to drive traffic. Why not have a bit of fun with it and add value for advertisers while you’re at it.

Who would have thought that the daily newspaper in a government town would take risks (albeit calculated ones) to engage readers, attract new audiences and remain relevant.

Filed Under: Media, Ottawa, writing Tagged With: clickbait, Ottawa Citizen, writing

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