Make It With Michael

By Dara Fontein Having certain boundaries in place is a good idea for any organization, especially when it comes to social media. A social media policy can help empower your employees with information and keep your brand safe. This living document, created by a company and for employees, includes best practices, guidelines, and procedures on training and enforcement. Why does my business need a social media policy? Protect your company’s reputation A social media policy lowers your risk of legal issues and helps protect your brand by outlining potential risks and the steps to take in the event of a misstep or account hack. It’s always better to be safe than sorry when it comes to protecting your brand. Set standards for employee use A social media policy gives you the opportunity to establish clear guidelines and expectations for employees. With a policy in place, employees can feel empowered to exercise creativity and show their personalities without having to worry that what th...

By Kendall Walters Instagram is introducing the ability to add up to 10 photos and videos to a single post , album-style. Users can swipe through to see each individual piece of content in the post, similar to Snapchat’s slideshow storytelling format. Image via Instagram Blog . Some publications are already decrying the death of Instagram’s culture of careful curation, but this change actually offers a lot of opportunity—especially for businesses. Listen up: this change means you can essentially create carousel ads —a highly engaging and interactive format that performs 10 times better than regular ads—for free. Like carousel ads, Instagram’s newest feature will allow you to combine photos and video to tell stories and convey information in the best way possible. 5 ways businesses can use Instagram’s new album feature Because albums are an easy way to create an interactive post, they’re also a low-barrier way for brands to share rich media and foster more engagement with foll...

By Ajit Singh Sending a bulk email is an irreversible process. You cannot undo it, edit it, or pull it back from the subscriber’s inbox. It’s done, and you can do nothing even if you immediately realize that you have committed a blunder just like the New York Times employee who sent an email to its list of 8 million+ people, which was only supposed to be sent to just 300 people. Twitter Erupts Over New York Times Email Blunder- The Daily Beast Since there is no second chance, the wisdom is in ensuring that you send the right email the first time. Period. Mailchimp outrightly suggests to “recruit someone to proof the campaign for you.” However, making mistakes is like a fart. Despite your resistance, you can’t stop it from coming wherever and whenever. So, in this post, we have identified some of the common, yet not so obvious mistakes, which email marketers make while setting up an email marketing campaign. Let’s take a look… 1. Ambiguous subject line The subject line is critic...

By Kaylynn Chong Organic reach is in decline. Call the authorities. Call the doctor. Call someone, because this is changing the way businesses use social media. Organic reach for Facebook Pages fell 52 percent in 2016. That’s one of many statistics that speak to how both algorithms and competition—in terms of the amount of content that’s being shared—are drastically changing the way we consume media. This also means your beloved social media content strategy isn’t reaching as many people as before. What to do? Here are four ways to deal with the decline in organic reach. Bonus: Get the step-by-step social media strategy guide with pro tips on how to grow your social media presence with Hootsuite. 4 ways to tackle a decline in organic reach on social media 1. Create unique content for each platform Be where your audience is. More and more users are consuming media in the same place they’re doing their networking —it makes sense to deliver content to them directly and to not ta...