A picture is worth a thousand words, but in social media, not all images are created equal.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended NetSquared Camp Vancouver, an unconference that brings together social media users and web innovators with social change makers and nonprofits to swap stories, mix ideas, and build new relationships. The purpose of the highly successful event was to empower non-profits with emerging tools, trends, and best practices, allowing them to fulfill their mission statements in new and innovative ways.

Although I’ve taken away many insights from the event, what struck me most was the session titled “How NGOs win on Facebook”. The folks at Capulet Communications looked at thousands of posts from a number of big non-profits to answer two questions:

• What kind of content earns the most likes, comments and shares?
• Which organizations are killing it on Facebook?

Some of their findings are not really surprising. For instance, they found that that photos and videos tend to get the most engagement. They also found that non-profits that are less self-promotional tend to find success on Facebook.

Where the study got interesting, however, is when they dug in deeper and looked at the most “engaging” photos to see why those images received the most likes, shares, and comments.

When people talk about photos in social media, they tend to talk about the technical stuff: rule of thirds, composition, balance, etc. But when it comes to getting people engaged, a technically superb photo isn’t sufficient.

Based on the top photos from Capulet’s Facebook study, here are four tips that you should consider when selecting images to share on social media.

1. Appeal to emotions.

Use photos to get your audience to react emotionally. Get them disgusted over an environmental issue. Or perhaps use an image that will get them excited over a news story about your organization. Make them happy with cute photos of babies, or perhaps make them depressed with striking images of famine or war.

Emotions are powerful, and an image is the perfect tool to get people to feel.

2. Be interesting.

All the photos that got a high engagement in the study were interesting.

Of course, what qualifies as “interesting” is subjective, but I think you’ll know that a photo is interesting when you see one.

To make the mundane more interesting, I suggest experimenting – a lot. For example, try shooting from a different angle. You can also try zooming in or out to catch a different view. More importantly though, keep your eyes open for anything in your organization that might seem boring and “normal” to you but may actually fascinate an outsider looking in.

Photo credit: Surfrider.org

3. Consider adding a simple message to your photo.

This was certainly a surprise for me. As it turns out, adding text over photos do work. The Surfrider example above would have worked okay if it just had the image, but adding the text “What goes in the ocean, goes in you” made the message clearer and drove home the point.

I don’t see many organizations doing this yet, but if you do, make the message concise. Also, keep the formatting simple and clean. You wouldn’t want the message to ruin your photo.

4. Share timely photos.

Images that are relevant to specific events — e.g. Valentine’s Day — received a lot of likes and comments. Organizations that took advantage of memes (e.g. the “S—t girls say” meme) also saw more engagement on Facebook.

Keep your eyes peeled for timely events and discussions where your organization or business might be able to contribute.

What type of photos do you “like”?

With the growing popularity of Pinterest and with cell phones’ cameras continuing to improve, we can only assume that photos will remain an important part of the social media culture. Consider the tips here to make sure that your photos stand out and that they tell your organization’s stories well.

Your turn – what type of photos do YOU comment on, share, or like on Facebook? Share your tips below.

© 2012, KC Claveria. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please link back to kcclaveria.com

One of the benefits of self-hosting your WordPress blog is having access to thousands of plugins for free.

Plugins are tools created by companies and independent developers that extend the functionality of WordPress. Some of the things you can use WordPress plugins for include protecting your site, improving your readers’ experience, and easily making your site mobile-friendly.

Recently I decided to transfer Filthy Pop, my music blog, to its own domain and server. This painful but necessary exercise allowed me to re-discover my love for plugins.

Here are 10 plugins I recommend every new WordPress blog should have:

1. Akismet

Akismet identifies and blocks comment and trackback spam. The plugin checks comments to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches in your admin panel.

Install this plugin if you don’t want to waste time going through pages and pages of spam. The Akismet service is free for personal WordPress accounts but come with a small fee for businesses.

2. Digg Digg

If you’d like your readers to share your blog posts with their social networks, you need to make it easy for them to do so.

Digg Digg is your all-in-one social sharing plugin. It’s an easy-to-use plugin that displays sharing buttons (with count) for all major social media sites. Digg Digg, which was recently acquired by Buffer, allows you to customize the placement of the button —  before the post, after, or as a floating bar.

3. w3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache helps your site’s performance. This widely-trusted plugin improves your server performance by caching every aspect of your site and by reducing download times.

4. WordPress SEO by Yoast

WordPress SEO helps to ensure that your post are, for the most part, optimized for search. (I say ‘for the most part’ because SEO is a bit more complex than having optimized titles, descriptions, and tags.)

Some people prefer the All-In-One SEO plugin, but from my experience, this tool is easier to use and more intuitive. The “Generate SEO Title” button in the WordPress SEO plugin is a time saver and is not available in that other plugin.

5. Social Media Widget

This is an easy to use and straightforward plugin to add links to your social media profiles through a widget. The plugin supports most major social media platforms.

As of this writing, Pinterest isn’t included yet in the Social Media Widget plugin, but you can use the custom icon functionality to link to your Pinterest profile.

6. Jetpack

Jetpack supercharges your WordPress website by providing features that are usually available on WordPress.com but not on WordPress.org. These features include site stats, hovercards, email subscriptions, and a spelling and grammar checker.

With these many features in one plugin, you’ll be a fool not to install this powerful plugin!

7. Google Analytics

Installing Google Analytics to your WordPress blog can be a bit of a headache if you’re not a programmer. Use the Google Analytics plugin to make this process easier — no coding required!

8. Blackbird Pie

Embedding tweets is easier now that Twitter has included an “Embed this tweet” functionality, but if you want an even easier way of doing it, check out this plugin. The Blackbird Pie plugin embeds tweets to your post in an attractive, non-obtrusive way.

9. Contextual Related Posts

These last two plugins are for reader retention because having a  high bounce rate sucks.

As its name suggests, Contextual Related Posts displays a list of related posts on your website and in your feed. The plugin does this by looking at your title or your post’s body. The related link appears below your post, before the comments section.

Although this free plugin seems to allow as many related links as possible, I suggest doing three to five to avoid overwhelming your readers.

10. WordPress Popular Posts

Show off your most popular posts with this plugin. You can specify the number of posts on the lists, where they appear (e.g. pages VS posts), and some other nifty customizations.

What are your fave plugins?

These are some basic plugins that new WordPress bloggers can use, but I’m pretty sure there are many other awesome ones.

What plugins can’t you live without? Any glaring omissions in my list? Leave a comment and let me know!

© 2012, KC Claveria. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please link back to kcclaveria.com

When marketers talk about social media, most automatically think about Facebook and Twitter.

Although it has been around for some time now, LinkedIn is somewhat suffering from a perception issue. Many marketers — even social media savvy ones— tend to ignore the use of a LinkedIn Company Page (if they are even aware that it is possible to create one!). For many, LinkedIn is a personal professional network.

LinkedIn Company Pages offer many features that businesses can take advantage of. It’s time you take this tool seriously. Here are four reasons why you should give LinkedIn Company Pages a second look.

1. Lead generation.

The first reason is also the most compelling.

In a study released earlier this year, Hubspot found that traffic from LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion compared to both Facebook and Twitter. The study, which involved 5,000 businesses, found that LinkedIn is almost three times more effective than Facebook and Twitter. (Note: This was before Pinterest became mainstream.)

In a blog post, Hubspot offered the following as possible explanations for this staggering statistic:

• As LinkedIn is a professional network, when users visit the site, they are most likely already in a business-focused mindset, helping content perform better.
• Generally speaking, there is less clutter on the site. People don’t post photos of their dogs, kids or what they had for lunch on LinkedIn. Because of the reduced noise, posts from company pages are more likely to be noticed

LinkedIn is a great lead generation tool, so how can your business afford not to have a presence in this professional platform?

2. Your competitors.

Many businesses are already looking into improving their presence on LinkedIn.  You can’t afford to be left behind.

A recent survey about social media usage, for example, indicates that LinkedIn saw the biggest increase in usage for small business owners. In the same survey, Twitter usage actually dropped.

In Canada, LinkedIn has seen its users more than double between 2009 and 2011. As more people join LinkedIn, you can only expect your competitors to be available here.  In fact, a separate survey indicates that 43% of Canadian businesses plan on ramping up their presence on LinkedIn — more than Google+, YouTube, and Twitter.  Get ahead of the curve and start ramping up your company’s presence now.

3.  SEO.

LinkedIn Company Pages tend to rank high on search engine results page (SERP). Having presence in this platform, therefore, is just another way of ensuring that your business is controlling what people see when they Google you.

Completing your company page (including listing and describing your products and services) can help drive traffic — and potentially sales leads — to your website.

4. Recommendations.

Recommendations are not just for personal profiles. Users can also leave recommendations for products and services through the company’s LinkedIn page.

B2B businesses should take advantage of this functionality and get further social proof by asking customers, suppliers, and clients leave recommendations on their LinkedIn Company Page.

Why do YOU use LinkedIn?

I’m curious to know how your business is using LinkedIn company pages. What other reasons should businesses consider when considering establishing a presence in this platform?

© 2012, KC Claveria. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please link back to kcclaveria.com

Note: A version of this article first appeared in the Dunn PR blog. Visit the Dunn Public Relations website to see the original blog post.

Pinterest has caught our attention at Dunn PR.

The hot social networking site has officially gone mainstream, with over 18 million people now using it regularly. The site grew 52% in February, easily outpacing the growth of Facebook or Google+.

Although we first heard of Pinterest six months ago, the site has only gained momentum in the past couple of months.

At Dunn PR, we’re brainstorming ideas about how this social media phenomenon can be utilized to amplify our clients’ messages. Here’s a sampling:

1. Don’t make it all about you!

Pinterest discourages users from using the site for blatant self-promotion.

This might seem counterintuitive, but the truth is that most of the time, social media isn’t about you. This is true for Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ — and it’s also true for Pinterest.

Pin photos of things that inspire you. It’s fine to pin your own projects (see tip #2 below), but the Pinterest community frowns upon too much self-promotion.

2. Enhance your story — and tell it through photos.

The old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” is as valid as ever. Pinterest — along with Instagram, Flickr, etc. — is just one of the many sites that encourage users to tell their stories through photos.

Pinterest lends itself to visual storytelling. (In other popular social media networks such as Google+ and Facebook, pictures also tend to get the most engagement.)

Take photos that tell the story of your brand well. Launching a new product? Why not create a Pinterest board and give your followers a sneak peek? Holding a big event? Then take some compelling photos at the event and pin them.

3. Show the organization’s human side.

People love to see the people behind the brand.  Give a behind-the-scene look at your company by posting profile photos of key people in your organization. Another idea is to snap interesting photos at your next company outing, conference, or speaking engagement.

A great example of an organization doing this well is — believe it or not — the U.S. Military. Their “Women in the Army” board, in particular, effectively showcases inspiring women. The key here is not just to pin random photos — think of how you can leverage your people to inspire your followers.

4. Experiment with videos.

A major misconception about Pinterest is that it’s only for photos. Users can also pin videos.

Leverage this functionality by creating videos that people would want to pin.  Of course, videos have other benefits: YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, and videos tend to rank well in search.

5. Learn more about media and online influencers through their boards.

We recently came across a marketing example that illustrates how brands can effectively use Pinterest for influencer outreach.

In a nutshell, an Isreali-based agency identified influencers through Pinterest as well as their interests through their boards and pins. The agency then sent them customized box of gifts that were as unique as they are.

When researching for blogger or online influencer outreach, consider checking people’s boards on Pinterest to get a better sense of who they are. Of course, don’t forget to check out their blogs, recent articles, and other social media profiles!

6. Get more mileage out of your media coverage.

Consider taking photos at your next media event and pinning your photos on Pinterest.

Again, a good example is the U.S. Military. Their “Good Morale” Pinterest board is an interesting mix of media appearances and charity events.

7. Develop relationships.

PR is all about relationships — and this remains true in the age of social media.

Follow reporters and bloggers on Pinterest and re-pin, comment on, and like their posts. Take the time to really get to know them through this platform.

Our final advice is to follow the website’s Pin Etiquette.  It’s available for a reason.

Your turn – how are you using Pinterest?

Now it’s your turn. What do you think of Pinterest? Have you been using it in your PR campaigns? Is it a useful part of your social media marketing mix?

© 2012, KC Claveria. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please link back to kcclaveria.com

People seem to be very split about Google+. On one hand, you have experts who feel that the site is disruptive and game-changing.

On the other hand, there are people — and I’d say that this is the majority — who still don’t see the value of the site.

Regardless of how you feel about it, Google+ deserves some poking around. As a platform backed by one of the biggest Internet giants around, Google+ offers many marketing potential. And it is still improving.

Here are three great resources to start learning about marketing on Google+.

For the skeptic: 10 reasons Google+ will dominate

If you’re still reluctant to join or use Google+, you’re not really alone. Although the site’s membership has grown significantly in the past year, people don’t seem to be hanging out on the platform. Some have called it a “ghost town“.

Having some reservations about this Google platform is fine, but Vancouver-based digital marketing agency 6S Marketing does a great job of outlining compelling reasons why Google+ is set for success. My favourite points include:

• Integration with Google accounts. As Google has repeatedly explained in the past, Google+ is not a social network; it is Google itself. Google+ is an information powerhouse, something that integrates other Google products for better search results. With the amount of data that Google has, expect Google+ to improve significantly in the future.
• Integration with ads. Most of Google’s revenue still comes its Google Adwords platform. Ranking well on the Google Adwords platform matter for advertisers. If the +1 buttons really do affect click through rates of ads, then expect most advertisers to eventually be on Google Plus.
• SEO and search. With Google Search Plus Your World, Google has redefined everything we previously know about search. This is a whole different ball game for search engine optimization (SEO), and organizations will need to start seriously thinking about having a robust Google+ presence if they want to rank well on Google SERPs.

For the SEO noobs: 5 ways of improving your search engine optimization using Google+

In an article for the Social Media Examiner, Kristi Hines (a.k.a. @kikolani) outlines tips on how to use Google+ to improve your SEO. As usual, Kristi does a great job of breaking down the information so it makes sense to experts and noobs alike.

The two biggest pro tips from this article are the following:

1. Claim authorship for articles you have written by following Google’s instructions. (Disclosure: I haven’t had success in doing this yet — but I’m working on it!)
2. Fill out your information completely and with targeted keywords. Sound simple right? But you’ll be surprised how many people actually haven’t done this yet.

For the marketing pro: 6 essential Google+ features for marketing your business

Google+ is more than just about SEO. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, some Google+ features present opportunities for marketers.

The Unbounce blog has a good post that outlines the Google+ features that can help your digital marketing strategy. (They have added an infographic about Google+ users as a bonus.)

Of course, the Google+ brand pages is a pretty much a giveaway — it is a great first step for your business to take if you’d like a presence on this platform. I think that the of Ripples and Hangouts are most interesting. Some companies have already played with Hangouts, but I’m curious what innovators will do to make use of this feature.

Any other Google+ resources I should check out?

Look, Google+ is here to stay. We might as well learn it well and rock this platform.

Do you have some awesome Google+ resources you’ve bookmarked lately? Share them in the comments section — I would love to read them!

P.S. Are you on Google+? Add me to your circles today!

© 2012, KC Claveria. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please link back to kcclaveria.com