Guides & Courses - Page 3
A collection of posts on Guided Courses
Selling is tough. It can be scary. It can be intimidating. But if you wanna succeed in this life, you’ve gotta learn how to do it. As the founder of Hustle Con, the startup conference for non-technical founders, I’ve been throwing conferences for a while now—and that means the team and I have done a TON of selling. Whether it’s a $10,000 sponsorship or 350 tickets to a conference, we’ve learned the tactics to convince people to act. In this post, I’ll show you 4 step-by-step methods that use s
Just the other day someone introduced me to a blogpost that could have fit right in on the pages of KISS Metrics or HubSpot. Instead, it was published on a brand new blog. And I started thinking, how might this blog get from unknown to well-known if it’s already got quality figured out? Provided we’ve got the goods, what’s to help you or me stand out from the crowd? Quality, in many ways, has become a commodity—a mass-produced, ubiquitous good in large supply. Social media marketing and conten
Your online reputation is your reputation. And it better be good. The way you describe yourself on Twitter has everything to do with how people perceive you online . So how the heck do you do it right? In this post, we’ll go over the 7 key ingredients of a powerful Twitter bio–whether you’re a novice [https://buffer.com/librar
I spend my days writing content from my desktop computer for people who will read the content on their smartphones and tablets. Go figure. Mobile devices are fast becoming the preferred method of reading, sharing, and engaging with online content. It’s strange to think that the content we create on desktops and laptops will end up on dozens of different screen sizes before all is said and done. It’s a good lesson to keep in mind. When I share to social media, what will my sharing look like to
Last week Buffer had the great pleasure of co-hosting a webinar with Twitter (yes, THAT Twitter!) During the webinar, I talked with Jimmy Hang of Twitter for Small Business about how to make your Twitter content work harder for your business, focusing on three major areas: * Writing great tweets * Timing it right * Measuring and testing If you weren’t able to make it but still want to write must-click content on Twitter (and really, who doesn’t?), here’s your guide! (Psst: You can scroll t
Among the many superpowers I wish I had, one that would be quite useful is the ability to understand social media metrics. I know enough to get by, and I love learning the new techniques to get more from these numbers—and to make sure I’m seeking the right numbers in the first place. In an effort to understand the little bits I can, I’ve done some research into all the many different social media stats you might track and which ones are worthwhile. Wouldn’t you know it, social media stats aren’
Few social media practices escape the arm of experiments here at Buffer. We love testing, iterating, and testing again to find ways to boost our metrics and explore new ways to interact better with our audience. Now Google+’s turn has finally come. We have made pushes on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to grow our numbers, and most recently we’ve been trying out some new tactics with Google+. And while doing so, we noticed that many others are talking about and testing out Google+ right alongs
Nowadays, when I endeavor to check my Facebook statistics, I do so with the window open, birds singing, a pint of ice cream at my desk, and party jams playing on my jambox. I must balance the bad news with some good. Checking Facebook statistics has been bad news for a lot of us lately as we wrestle with declining numbers and shrinking reach. As the Facebook algorithm continues to change and adapt, we continue looking for answers. Why can’t we reach more fans with our updates? What kind of con
Subway has this sandwich with Fritos on it. I know this because their commercials play constantly on my TV and computer such that I nearly have the ads memorized. Every time their commercial airs, Subway is flirting with the fine art of frequency. How often is too often to share with your audience? Social media marketers face the same dilemma. We want to connect with followers without driving them away. We aim for the perfect balance of sharing and listening. I end up guessing a lot, trying
The word “audit” deserves more love than it gets. When I hear the word, my mind goes straight to tax season and the manila envelope crammed with receipts and forms that I keep stashed away in the closet. Audits seem to equal anxiety, which is too bad – because not all audits are created equal. A tune-up at the garage is essentially an audit for your car, a check-up at the doctor is an audit of your health. You can learn a lot from regular reviews like these.The same holds true for an audit of
Social media is a crowded place. You need every competitive advantage possible to stand out. Luckily, giving your social media posts a little something extra doesn’t have to mean to a lot of extra work for you. In this post, we’ll go over some simple tricks and best practices of social media formatting to help you create unique, stand-out posts on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest, along with some tools [https://buffer.com/resources/the-big-list-of-100-tools-tips-and-tricks-to-work
The currency of social media is the share. We all want to be the go-to person with the latest news, the most intriguing viral content , or the best hidden gems followers wouldn’t have found otherwise. Some people just have a knack for finding and crafting the perfect share. The rest of us have to work a little harder. Really, great social media sharing is a skill. And like all other skills,
Through-out 2013, there were a number of posts here on the Buffer blog that you and others simply found more useful than any other posts. How do we know? We looked at all our past post through a simple Google Analytics analysis and this is what we found. Since we recently launched Buffer for Business , we thought
Here is something I realized pretty quickly: Getting started with any type of online paid advertising can seem overwhelming. Yet, there are two online platforms you just can’t avoid: Google and Facebook. With over 1 billion active users, Facebook is one of the most important social networks for advertisers, and whether you like it or not, it’s something every small business should attempt to master. In fact, according to a study from Pew Research Center [http://www.journalism.org/2013/10/24/the
I have a link to Facebook in my bookmarks bar, so I can visit it with just the click of button, but the link doesn’t go to facebook.com. It’s actually a link to one of my closest friends’ profiles. So my Facebook landing page is actually her profile page. It’s been this way for about a year now. Here’s why: I stopped spending a lot of time on my Facebook News Feed , because I found that the posts I was seeing weren’t too interesting, an
Our biggest aim at Buffer is to help you share content on social media in better ways. I wanted to look at ways we can help you with this entire process, from finding the content to sharing it, to analyzing your social media posts. So I’ve uncovered some cool ways to do these things that you might not already know. Why find and share great content? Maybe you’re wondering why we focus so much on discovering and sharing awesome content here at Buffer. There are a few reason
Over 400 million Tweets are posted every day on Twitter. And close to 8 billion items are posted on Facebook. How can you make sure you are part of the mix every day? And most importantly how can the updates you throw in be of great value? The answer is somewhat simple: Use the right tools with the right workflow. That way you can make sure that you will be at the edge of efficiency and also build a great following. Providing your friends and followers with amazing content from across the web,
Note of appreciation: This is a guest post by Jordan Lyall from Twin River Labs. I have been DYING for such a tool that lets you easily add Tweet buttons to sentences in your posts. Jordan has done an amazing job here. I think this will be incredibly useful to any blogger! ? One thing I learnt: People don’t share your articles simply because of the great content. Unless you already have a following of passionate readers, the “post it and forget it” strategy tend
This is a guestpost by Simon Blackley (@simonblackley) of communications agency ESN . More about Simon at the end of the post. News, ideas and pictures of dogs wearing sunglasses spread around the planet with unprecedented speed. I found that we enrich our online networks by finding, selecting, combining and contextualising content that will be of value to them. In doing so, we build our own social brands. But we have lives, too! – jobs, families and strange hobbies. With
The following post is a guestpost from Alicia Cowan , a great Social Media thinker and blogger. More about her at the bottom of the post. You’ve probably heard or even learnt that it’s not very effective to hard sell on Twitter. Constantly pitching your own products and services will get you nowhere. So the only thing hard selling will get you is unfollowed, blocked or labelled a spammer. Ouch! That’s all true – but we’re not using Twitter just for fun! We’re
Last night, we had another one of our weekly Buffer meetups here in San Francisco. Klaus (@cavemanklaus), one of our awesome Buffer friends asked us a question that I originally thought might be much easier to answer: What is the best way to retweet someone? Klaus mentioned he sees a ton of different ways people are doing retweets these days. What is the best way to go about it? What are the advantages of doing a Twitter native retweet? What are the disadvantages of doing an “RT” retweet? Wh
So you want a job in social media, do you? Realize it’s not always about experience. Attitude sometimes has a lot to do with getting hired in a social media job. Your future employer will Google you, and top social networks you are on will appear. So be on all the big ones, and be current, appealing, and active. An up-to-date profile with a clean-cut headshot or face pic is a must. Also, have a personal page, like a blog or Tumblr. Ideally, own your own .com with your first and last name. Gu
Don’t worry, we’ve all made mistakes. And Twitter can be tough to learn! But some things are easier to excuse than others. You have to make an effort. One of the easiest ways to learn Twitter is to follow good people and ask them questions. Or read blogs with lots of Twitter tips (like this one). Keep a real or virtual notepad handy to jot down questions as you go so you won’t forget them later. Then take some time each week to ask folks or do some searches to find the answers. Got a specifi
Free Twitter Candy For You “Twitter is responsible for getting me my current job” Is what Antonia Harler said when I briefly interviewed her about her recently published book “Twitter as a tool for relationship marketing” and the true power of Twitter. The book, as I like to call it, is actually her Master’s Thesis, which she finished last year and is finally available to the public. What’s in it for me? What struck me whilst reading this piece was that it achieves something phenomenal. It i