Community Blog - Page 10

Many small business owners are unsure how to proceed with marketing their business and communicating with their audience during this time. Social media is still a great way to reach your audience and market. But you must be cautious of your messaging.

As part of our Small Business Support Kit, Constant Contact has been hosting a free weekly webinar series that includes practical advice on putting your action plan to work. You can watch the webinar in its entirety below. Last week we hosted part two, focusing on communicating via social media. Our special guest speakers were Patrick Gillooly, Director of Marketing, Social Ads, and Audience Strategy and Abby Chapin, Senior Product Manager. Topics discussed during this webinar included:

• Tips for marketing your business or organization on social
• Ideas to engage and communicate without sounding insensitive
• How to easily create and manage your organic social efforts within Constant Contact
  
  

Here are some of the questions during the webinar from our attendees:

Social Media Strategy

My business is just starting out on social media. Which platforms would be the best to post on?

Ultimately, this depends on your business and the industry that you're in. You want to be where your audience is. Patrick has written a fantastic blog article about what social media platform is right for your business or organization. 

Can you give examples of how to use social media in B2B?

Many of the same principles still apply. You want to make sure you are showing your expertise. LinkedIn is a great platform for most B2Bs. Some can even find success on Facebook and other platforms. Check out this post from the Constant Contact Blog for more information.

On Facebook, should I be posting to my personal or business account or both?

For your business, you'll want to post to your business page. If you have personal friends and followers interested in your business, you can find value in sharing it from your business page to your friends.

Do you recommend using different content for each social platform that I am on rather than sharing the same one across the board every time? 

Yes, especially since each platform has its own advantages. Tailor your message to your audience and what each platform offers (high-quality images for Instagram, links and photos on Facebook) and stagger your posting times so it doesn't go out all at once.

How can I grow my list on social media during this time? Does Constant Contact have a tool for this?

Yes, we have many different list growing tools that can be used in conjunction with your social media strategy, including a Facebook Sign Up form or creating a lead ad for Facebook and Instagram.

How can I share my Constant Contact email on social media?

By using our Social Share tool, you can share your email with just a few clicks on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. You can even customize the post with your own text and a relevant image. 

Social Posting through Constant Contact

Can I post to my social accounts when I am logged into my Constant Contact account?

You can with our Social Posting tool for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter! We covered this tool within the webinar but you can read our Knowledge Base article about our Social Posting tool for a quick overview. If you would like to see a demonstration, click here for Abby's live demonstration given during the webinar. You can also schedule social posts for a future date.

Is there an additional cost for this product?

No, it's included in all Constant Contact accounts. However, if you wish to view or engage in a social media conversation, you will need to upgrade to Email Plus.

What types of accounts can be connected so I can start creating posts?

Any Twitter account can be connected. However, for Facebook and Instagram, you will need a business account as personal accounts cannot be connected. Read our Knowledge Base article for a full walkthrough on connecting your business Facebook and Instagram accounts. 

Once a post has been created, can it be edited? I don't like the image that I selected.

Since Twitter does not allow the editing of tweets, the post can only be deleted. Facebook and Instagram posts can be edited from within that specific platform.

What results can I see after I've done my post? Am I able to see the demographics of who saw the post?

We cannot record demographics but the reporting for social posts will include the reach of your post and what engagement was created as a result of it.

I like to take pictures on my phone and I want to use them in a social post. Can I do that?

Yes, with the Constant Contact mobile app, you can upload photos from your phone to your library. 

Jake Link returns with some helpful ideas on how to cope with the new challenges many of us are facing with our new working environments. Check out the Constant Contact Blog to see how you can stay productive while working from home.

We'd love to hear what you've been doing to transform a part of your home life into your new work life. Pictures are welcome!

Well, here we are, getting ready to welcome another new year.  I thought that for my final post of 2019, I’d go over some best practices to help start your 2020 marketing efforts off on the right foot.  A lot goes into successfully delivering an email to the inbox, and these are just a few best practices to keep in mind.

Do you ever feel the pressure of marketing your business online, but are always pressed for time? Or do you have no idea where to start with utilizing your Constant Contact account? If you answered yes to either of these problematic questions -- we have the solution! At Constant Contact, we are here to help and want to provide you with the right professional service to make you and your business successful.

A lot of people believe that delivering an email is as simple as clicking “send” and waiting a couple seconds for it to go to the inbox (or maybe the junk folder if it looks like spam).  In reality, there are a lot of checks and balances that an email campaign needs to go through before it can be successfully delivered. Every part of your message, be it the footer, body, images, subject line, and so on can affect delivery.  One aspect that is often overlooked is the “from” email address. In this post, I’ll go over how using a free email address as the “from” address can affect your delivery.

We as email marketers tend to define spam as “unsolicited” or “unrequested” mail.  While this is technically correct, it goes a bit beyond that. The truth is, spam is in the eye of the beholder.  These days, people tend to consider any mail they don’t want as spam, whether they asked for it or not. As senders, we need to understand this and make sure we are mailing to interested and engaged contacts.

Back in October, I posted about some types of problematic email addresses and why they are cause for concern. Today, I will be covering a few more types of addresses that I didn’t get to discuss previous: dead domain addresses and spamtraps.

You've heard the phrase "there's no second chance to make a great first impression" right? Well, that phraseautomation, email, marketing should be echoed through your email marketing, especially in your Welcome Email. Read on to find out how to make it happen.

Today, I’m going to go over a few of the problematic email address types that can also result in a Constant Contact account disabling for a review.

In the interest of brevity, I’ll only be discussing a few of the different types of addresses in this post, you can expect a follow-up post in a few weeks that will discuss some others. Today’s topic will be “role”, “transactional”, and “group” addresses

List Reviews come about only due to list size, whereas Account Review are due to a specific issue that Compliance would like to discuss with a customer.  One of those issue are elevated spam complaints.