Busting Myths, Rumors And Stories In Social Media

The Digital Slice Podcast is brought to you by The Friedman Group, LLC

How much should you believe about all the information that’s out there on social media? We aren’t talking about fake news, but more about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to social media marketing and what you can do as a business owner to enhance your strategy.

There are several gurus out there who may claim to have found the truth about which practices and strategies are effective, but you need to make sure the data they give out is indeed based on actual evidence and will work for your company.

Today’s episode is about busting the myths about social media using data gathering, testing, and research. At the end of the day, what you want is to be able to make business decisions that are data-driven and spot-on for growth.

Scott Ayres is a Content Scientist at Agorapulse and he is in charge of doing the research and the writing about the results of his research and hosting a podcast to discuss his findings. Scott is the host of Agorapulse’ Social Media Lab podcast and he’s out to bust the myths that abound social media.

He isn’t afraid to challenge the gurus and is continually soliciting the community for questions they want answered. Having managed different businesses and working with various companies in the last 15 years, you can count on Scott’s out-of-the-box thinking, creative prowess, and evidence-based research.

Scott is also the co-author of, “Facebook All-in-One for Dummies.”

In this Episode:

• Scott’s role at Agorapulse doing research for the sake of the truth when it comes to social media
• Where Scott gathers ideas to test, from conferences, blog posts, and various audiences
• Social Media Lab’s LinkedIn hashtag experiment and how one hashtag increased the number of impressions on two separate LinkedIn accounts
• How hashtags are about getting new followers
• How your hashtags should be making sense for your brand
• Scott’s experiments with Instagram specifically on where to place your hashtags
• How Instagram has revised their hashtags algorithm to even the playing field
• How to get 30 new Twitter followers using Twitter’s new paid promotion and Scott’s testing as to how it works
• How to use Twitter’s paid promotion works best when you’re just starting out to get new followers
• How quality is more important than quantity when it comes to Twitter followers
• Scott’s follow and unfollow experiment on Twitter and Instagram and which strategy can work effectively for you
• How to follow strategic hashtags that increase audience engagement
• How to be smart about the hashtags you follow by making it well-targeted
• The lowdown on Agorapulse as a social media management platform

Quotes From this Episode:
“If I’m getting 29% higher reach or impressions on my post just by adding one simple hashtag, I better go add hashtags more to my LinkedIn updates.” - Scott Ayres
“What the hashtag does is expose you to new people who are searching by that hashtag or following that hashtag.” - Scott Ayres
“Think of hashtags as that profusion, it’s that bait you’re throwing out trying to hook some people to come follow you and engage with your content.” - Scott Ayres
“It’s kinda what a hashtag is: it’s just your way of getting in front of new people who didn’t know who you were before” - Scott Ayres
“Sometimes, the problem with some of the bigger hashtags is too many people are posting it and so you’ll get lost in all the shuffle.” - Scott Ayres
“What’s funny with Instagram, even though it’s been around for awhile, it’s still that platform that a lot of business, especially small business, haven’t figured out enough.” - Scott Ayres
“If it doesn’t give you any advantage, why waste the time doing it?” - Scott Ayres
“We’re past that day, I hope, in social media where we are so worried about the number of followers. It’s more about the quality of followers.” - Scott Ayres
“I love that Twitter has gotten a little bit smarter now and they’ve kicked out a lot of the bad users, fake accounts.” - Scott Ayres
“The worst hashtag for us has been, in social media, has been #socialmedia. That hashtag on Instagram is the worst for us to follow people on.” - Scott Ayres
“Targeted hashtags are the key.” - Scott Ayres

Resources:

Scott Ayres
Twitter: @ScottAyres
Facebook: @scottwayres
LinkedIn: @scottwayneayres
Websites: agorapulse.com
Social Media Lab: Social Media Lab

Book: Facebook All-in-One For Dummies

Brad Friedman

Twitter:

@BradFriedman

@FriedmanGrp

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thefriedmangroup

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bfriedman/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-friedman-group-llc

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/friedmansocialmedia

Website: https://friedmansocialmedia.com

Books
“Brad Friedman on Digital Marketing,” by Brad Friedman
“The Small Business Owner's Guide To Inbound Marketing,” by Brad Friedman

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