Make It With Michael

By Dara Fontein If you’re a social media marketer, you know how difficult it can be to find the perfect image to accompany a post. We all know that photos are one of the most important components for boosting engagement, but unless you’re willing to pay for it, finding a great one can be seriously time-consuming. That’s why we put together this handy collection of free stock photo websites. Bookmark it for quick reference. Bonus: Download a free cheat sheet to quickly find the best image sizes for every social network and learn how you can use Hootsuite to easily add them to any post. 20 of the best resources for free stock photos Every image site in the list below falls under Creative Commons—so you don’t need to worry about getting sued. If you’d like to learn more about how image copyright works on social media, check out our post Can I Use This Photo on Social Media? Understanding Image Copyright . 1. Gratisography Gratisography is one of the most interesting of the free s...

http://ift.tt/eA8V8J By Dara Fontein If you’re a social media marketer, you know how difficult it can be to find the perfect image to accompany a post. We all know that photos are one of the most important components for boosting engagement, but unless you’re willing to pay for it, finding a great one can be seriously time-consuming. That’s why we put together this handy collection of free stock photo websites. Bookmark it for quick reference. Bonus: Download a free cheat sheet to quickly find the best image sizes for every social network and learn how you can use Hootsuite to easily add them to any post. 20 of the best resources for free stock photos Every image site in the list below falls under Creative Commons—so you don’t need to worry about getting sued. If you’d like to learn more about how image copyright works on social media, check out our post Can I Use This Photo on Social Media? Understanding Image Copyright . 1. Gratisography Gratisography is one of the most inte...

By Andrea Moxham As much as we may wish our Instagram follower growth showed an upward trend, it’s probably more like a rocky mountain landscape with peaks and valleys. Fluctuations in your follower count are totally normal and often a result of the ‘follow/unfollow’ game that many accounts foolishly choose to play. Here’s how it works: an individual follows you, waits until you follow back, then unfollows you. The unfollow can happen seconds, days, and sometimes weeks later. While this strategy may work for some businesses to grow their audience, those followers probably won’t turn into customers. Image Source: Buffer But don’t waste time feeling offended – a lot of these accounts that unfollow are actually bots ( up to 24 million, actually !). In other words, they’re fake accounts created in online black markets to interact with other users. They’re often used by businesses to increase their following, and Instagram is actively implementing methods to weed out these annoying a...

http://ift.tt/2xghsZ7 By Andrea Moxham As much as we may wish our Instagram follower growth showed an upward trend, it’s probably more like a rocky mountain landscape with peaks and valleys. Fluctuations in your follower count are totally normal and often a result of the ‘follow/unfollow’ game that many accounts foolishly choose to play. Here’s how it works: an individual follows you, waits until you follow back, then unfollows you. The unfollow can happen seconds, days, and sometimes weeks later. While this strategy may work for some businesses to grow their audience, those followers probably won’t turn into customers. Image Source: Buffer But don’t waste time feeling offended – a lot of these accounts that unfollow are actually bots ( up to 24 million, actually !). In other words, they’re fake accounts created in online black markets to interact with other users. They’re often used by businesses to increase their following, and Instagram is actively implementing methods to wee...

By Christina Newberry It’s an understatement of epic proportions to say there’s a lot of activity on Facebook every day. This biggest of the social networks has climbed to more than two billion users and 70 million Business Pages . So, how can your brand stand out from the crowd? According to a poll conducted by the Content Marketing Institute and ion interactive, 81 percent of content marketers say interactive content (like polls, contests, quizzes, and so on) grabs readers’ attention more effectively than static content. It’s not surprising, then, that half of content marketers are using contests as a component of their marketing strategy. An engaging Facebook contest can be an effective way to capture attention and support your business goals. In this post, we’ll explain everything you need to know to run a successful Facebook contest, and take a look at some Facebook contest examples that showcase what other brands are already doing right in the Facebook contest space. Table...

http://ift.tt/2fft8VM By Christina Newberry It’s an understatement of epic proportions to say there’s a lot of activity on Facebook every day. This biggest of the social networks has climbed to more than two billion users and 70 million Business Pages . So, how can your brand stand out from the crowd? According to a poll conducted by the Content Marketing Institute and ion interactive, 81 percent of content marketers say interactive content (like polls, contests, quizzes, and so on) grabs readers’ attention more effectively than static content. It’s not surprising, then, that half of content marketers are using contests as a component of their marketing strategy. An engaging Facebook contest can be an effective way to capture attention and support your business goals. In this post, we’ll explain everything you need to know to run a successful Facebook contest, and take a look at some Facebook contest examples that showcase what other brands are already doing right in the Facebook...