Five Easy Places to Find Social Media Content

Do you ever find yourself staring at your computer, wracking your brain for the answer to "what the heck am I going to post on Facebook today"?

Fear not social media mangers: there are easy ways and places to find content that are right under your nose. Many of the places I look for content are easy to search and filled with oodles of content just for you!

1. Google Images: The neat thing about Google Images is that you can literally search anything and at least something will come up. Let's say you are doing social media for a lawn care company and you are trying to find a picture to encourage engagement on your page. Google "funny lawn" in images. The page literally doesn't end and there are hilarious content pictures for you to use!

Caution: If you are going to be publishing something using one of the Google images, make sure you are not breaking copy write!

2. Twitter: Twitter feeds are filled with a wealth of relevant information for your company if you know how to search for it. An easy way to find related content is to go into the search box and use a hashtag term to look for content. Let's use the example of a marketing company. A marketing company may search hashtags such as: #marketing, #SEO, #socialmedia, and #advertising. An endless Twitter feed of information will appear and I promise you will find at least one article or tip you can use for your social media.

Caution: Make sure to click the link before your re-tweet to actually read the article and make sure the link works. If bad content is present, you may upset your followers.

3. Wikipedia: Yes I know you are saying, "what is she thinking?" but seriously, it works for finding topics to search for. Let's say you run social media for a handyman company. Put "handyman" into the search bar and quickly skim through the article. Scroll down and you'll see a section of the article that gives you a whole list of "handyman jobs". Now, you can use those as search terms on other sites to find content.

Caution: Wikipedia is meant to be an "idea box" (in my opinion). It gives you a good overview of information, but many of the facts, figures, and articles listed on that site are not reliable and you want to caution yourself against giving false information to your customers.

4. Pinterest: The best thing about Pinterest is the variety of content. Not only can you find good pictures, you can also find articles on virtually any topic, websites you've never heard of, and that "perfect post" you've been waiting to find. It's easy to search for key terms and browse general categories until you find what you are looking for.

Caution: If you are re-pinning any of the material you find, make sure to click on the image and see where it goes. You don't want to direct your customers to a dead-end website or a competitor!

5. Social media sites for companies like yours: Who knows the industry better than your competitors? Similar social media sites can be a great resource. What I mainly use this for is seeing what topics they are posting about, how often they are posting, and maybe to use some of their content.

Caution: Is this content poaching? Well it can be if you steal all their content all the time,so use this one in moderation.

I hope that this gives you some ideas of where to find a variety of quality content for your various social media sites!

What resources do you use for finding content? How do you keep your ideas fresh and interactive?

~Melissa

The Importance of Google-ing your Business

Have you ever thought of the importance of looking into what people say about your business online?  Not just on social media where you can see it, but on blogs, customer review sites, and even in the media; your business is being mentioned whether you like it or not!

I just started a new job at a large company in Lansing, Michigan.  Part of my daily tasks are to google the business and see what comes up.  Never thought to do that?  You'd be surprised what comes up!  Besides the simple knowledge of knowing what is on the internet, it is important to correct information or inform your customers of the correct information.  Let's say it's as simple as having the wrong operating on hours up on a website that advertises local businesses.  This is a very simple but quite important correction to make!  But incorrect information can be so much worse than that; articles like this state that a customer that had a bad experience is twice as likely to talk about it than someone that had a good experience; whether their facts are right or not.

When doing research about your company on the web, these websites are key:
1. Google.com and google.com/news
2. Bing.com
3. Your local newspaper's website
4. Wikipedia
5. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and all other social media sites

Although you cannot remove or change all information about your company, good or bad, it is important to address the issues that you can. You want to ensure that you handle it in the best and most well thought out way you can.  There are some important things to remember as you respond to customers on the web:

1. Always be friendly!  Whether you are responding to a good or bad comment, you want to treat the customer well because once it is online, it is out there for all to see.  The old mantra that "the customer is always right" will apply 99% of the time and can backfire easily if not handled correctly.

2.  Always follow up if you say you are going to follow up.  If you respond to a tweet or facebook post with "I have to check with the manager, but will get back to you", it is important to follow up!  The concern that they were addressing will only be amplified if you do not follow through with your word.  

3.  Remember that traffic and mentions are good! So try to avoid deleting things other people have written (unless you have to of course) and instead redirect them to your website, social media sites, or give them the correct information.  

It is a good thing for people to be mentioning your business online, it's just important to keep tabs on who says what and that the information is as accurate as possible!  Hopefully these simple tips have shown you where to look and what to do with what you find, please let me know if you have any additional suggestions about google-ing your business.  Also feel free to share stories about what you have found and how you handled it!

Thanks everyone, until next time!

~Melissa

"The only thing Google has failed to do, so far, is fail" ~ John Battelle