A successful Facebook Page relies on compelling updates. With compelling updates you will get more “likes” and comments. Below are 5 tips we would like to share with our readers to help you create Facebook updates that are more compelling.

1. Your updates should be short. This is because people usually go through they updates quickly through their News Feed. If you go over the limit in your update and require a “More” button, chances are people won’t be clicking on the link. If you can keep your updates under 320 characters and preferably under 200, you should avoid the need for a “More” button.

2. Infrequent updates. Unlike Twitter where posting as often as 10 times a day is acceptable, with Facebook this will turn people off. Try staying to posting between 2-3 updates a day.

3. When you post is important. Studies have shown that the rate of users on Facebook goes up at 11:00am, 3:00pm and 8:00pm EST. If you post your updates during these times it will give you the most exposure to your users.

4. Be personable. Write like a real person as if you’re talking to a friend in front of you. This will increase your effectiveness as opposed to writing in a formal and distant way.

5. Use benefits to encourage interaction. Use polls, ask open-ended questions, run giveaways like coupons or t-shirts or even raffle an e-book. This will help to make your Fans feel special and encourage interaction.

Every Facebook Fan Page is different and unique. Experiment and find out what works for your page and fans. Share with us your findings and successes. We’d love to hear from you!

In order to grow your Twitter following and provide value to your followers you need to be consistent with your “sharing”. However, time is a finite source and whilst we would like to keep up with all the activities of our followers on Twitter is it not always possible.

I’ve come up with a list of 10 useful things you could share on Twitter with your followers that provide value and at the same time doesn’t require a lot of time on your part.

1. Discovered a new app or tool that’s useful? Provide a brief description and share the direct link
2. Share a specific conversation or thread that might be going on – highlight it and link to it
3. A link to a poll taking place that might stimulate some thought and encourage interaction
4. A link featuring a special offer or product that might be of interest – create value for your followers
5. A link to a Twitter list you think is worth following and why
6. Share an event that’s coming up and possibly of interest to your community – link to the details
7. Share something light such as a link to a funny YouTube video
8. If you’re heading to an event, share the #hashtag and link to that event before, during, and after
9. Link directly to a relevant podcast
10. Link to a relevant free e-book

Hopefully the above tips are helpful to save you some time and still provide value and engagement for your Twitter followers. Share with us and our readers things you share to bring value to your followers!

The popularity of social media has created a need for real-time search engines in order to aggregate and search for information. New platforms are coming up in answer to these needs.

In this article we will be covering 3 real-time search engines that might be useful in helping you to stay up to date with what’s happening in social media relevant to your marketing strategies.

OneRiot

OneRiot is currently the largest real-time search engine for Social Media. It aggregates popular topics from Twitter and other social media sites. Articles are consolidated into one headline that when clicked on brings up a variety articles within the topic. OneRiot indexes its search results according to their current relevance and popularity.

OneRiot will save you lots of time by not having to search through all the news sites to find the information you are looking for. Just search by a particular topic and OneRiot will return all the search results for that topic across the web in real-time.

As an example, if you sell watches, linking to OneRiot results page with the most current information on the types of watches you sell will instantly give your customers a resource to help them make their decision.

Collecta

Collecta monitors the update streams of news sites, popular blogs and social media, and Flickr, so it will show you results as they happen.

If you like to keep up with important news stories as they are happening, then Collecta is for you because it will aggregate news stories by topic and then suggest three sources to give you the breadth of angles on a particular news story.

48ers

48ers is a social search engine that scans Facebook, Twitter and Digg for conversations. The site is great if you are searching for keywords and want to see what people are discussing about within a certain topic.

Some ways 48ers could be useful:

• You can track what people are saying about your company or brand across major social sites from one interface.

• You can engage your audience by using the sharing functionality directly from within the 48ers’ interface.

• You can build an audience by tracking what is being said about them in real time and respond accordingly.

These are a few of the real-time social media search engines that we have come across. Let us know if you use them too and how it’s benefited you. If you’re using a different social media search engine, let us know what it is and how it has helped you to manage all the information that is out there in the social media world.

Twitter announced last week that it will begin wrapping all links posted through their service with it’s own t.co domain. We will begin seeing these links on certain accounts that have opted-in to the service and it will be rolled out to all users by the end of the year. At that time all links shared on Twitter.com or third-party apps will be wrapped with a t.co url.

Twitter’s new url shortener will essentially do what any third-party url shortener service currently does which is to shorten a long url link to fit into the 140 character requirements of a tweet with the exception of providing the ability to track the clicks on links and any analytics that go with that. At least for the time being. Twitter’s vague statement on this : “We hope to use this data to provide better and more relevant content to you over time.”

This move by Twitter means it’s stepping up the competition for third-party developers. For marketers, it surely means the new service will be providing link tracking analytics directly from Twitter. When a user clicks on a wrapped link it will go through Twitter’s service to check for any malware at the destination site. It will then forward the user to the destination url.

Some say that as a result of the level of spam that has targeted Twitter it makes sense for Twitter to step up security by offering it’s own url shortener service. Others think that Twitter is trying to step into the url shortener service market and roll out it’s own revenue generating service to users that enable them to track the clicks on these links.

How about you what do you think about Twitter’s latest move with the t.co url shortener and how it could affect your marketing efforts?

To be successful in social media it is important to have a plan, timeline and measurable goals in order to evaluate the success of your campaign. Below are 4 steps that should be included in any social media campaign:

1. Listen

It is important to understand the social media presence of your target audience and your brand. Listening first and then coming up with a plan based on the information learnt will maximize the ROI of your online efforts.

Some key points to consider include where your target audience are interacting online and who the key influencers and brand advocates are.

2. Strategy planning and metrics

Some social media monitoring tools available can help you identify a baseline that will provide you with comparatives to measure success. You need to consider both the creative and technical sides of your campaign. Things to consider:

• What are your campaign objectives?
• What will inspire and motivate consumers to participate?
• How can you make your campaign easy to share amongst consumers?
• What resources will you need? (technology, staffing, etc.)
• How will you track and measure your campaign?

What to measure will depend on your objectives. Easiest measurement is what percentage increase or decrease in behavior would you like to see over time? For example, reduce in demand on call center by 5%, increase in conversations about a new product you are launching by 10% or increase in customer satisfaction by 12%.

3. Online Engagement

Creating the opportunity for human interaction with your brand is key. Your staff who are internet savvy are great ambassadors of your brand. Invite them to participate and provide training to them as they will become great resources to your campaign’s success. They can use their networks to spread the word.

The key goal of your campaign should be to create something so “talkable” that people are discussing it everywhere. Being responsive to those who participate in the conversation is also essential to success.

The tool you use should be able to help you identify who your brand advocates are and their online influence. The tool should also be able to provide you with daily reports and real time alerts so that you can respond to those who are participating and responding to your campaign.

4. Evaluate and Revise

Reviewing the success of a campaign is necessary for the planning of future ones. Some questions to consider are:

• What worked and what didn’t?
• What could be improved?
• Did the campaign increase customer satisfaction?
• Was the campaign worth the investment?

It’s important to remember that social media marketing is about building relationships and having the resources to continue the interaction with consumers online. A social media campaign is a part of your social media strategy. It needs to be an ongoing effort.