How to Make the Perfect Post on Each Social Media Platform

As a Chicago digital marketing agency that deals with a lot of social media marketing, we understand it can be very difficult to remember how to create the perfect post on each social media platform.

We don't like leaving people in the dark, our agency is all about transparency; due to that mentality and model, here are tips to help your business create the perfect post on every major social media platform.

• Google Plus: 
• Make sure to use a great image. The higher resolution, the better. The more relevant, the better. For size, 800 pixels by 600 pixels or 800 pixels by 1200 pixels are the optimal sizes. 
• Pinterest: 
• Create boards with a specific theme. 
• Put descriptions for each pin, 200 characters, sprinkle in keywords. Pinterest will find these in search. 
• Vertical images optimize "real estate" on your Pinterest. Images 735 pixels by 1102 pixels. 
• Link Pin to your site or another source. 
• Relevant, high quality images. 
• Twitter: 
• You have 140 characters but leave 10-20 characters open for each tweet; this leaves room for manual RTs with comments. 
• Include links and/or images. 
• Use engaging, action-sparking words or phrases. 
• Facebook: 
• Vary between photos, videos, and links. 
• Include a personal bit of information- thoughts, summary, synopsis, question, etc. with each post. Be personal. 
• LinkedIn:
• Don't post quotes. 
• Be consistent. 
• Links to articles or using images in posts goes over well. 
• Share OC as well as sharing someone else's content. 

Do you have questions or comments? Then call or email Integraphix, we would love to help you! 

5 Easy Ways to Have Better Content Marketing

The concept of content marketing is that if it used the way it should be, it is a great and wonderful to make your business more memorable. The operative phrase there being, "used the way it should be." You cannot create content that is broad and generic content, or duplicated content (yikes!), and expect it to be a useful tool for your business.

We have 5 ways to make sure your marketing efforts are working for you! Sit back and read while enjoying a Coke.

1. Write case studies. These are wonderful tools because they show that you have true, real, wonderful, proven knowledge and efforts in your industry that others can capitalize on. When you show your target audience that you can do what you say you do, it gives them confidence; it encourages them to think that you can reproduce the positive results with them. Stories create powerful messages that you can leverage with prospects. Use details. 
2. Remember repetition. Keep in touch with people and be memorable. We hardly remember the stranger that we met the one time at the place and we did that thing. Using emails, blogs, videos, posts on social media, etc. to keep in touch. We also emphasize the need for consistent and quality posts on your blogs, articles, newsletters, and any other print marketing efforts you use. If you have one post in January and don't do another until August, that's not good for business. 
3. Be descriptive. We as humans like to have details; we like to be able to picture things that are said in words. If I described a cat to you, would you prefer, "A small tiger looking thing. 4 legs. A tail. 2 ears" OR  "An animal that is a foot long, 10 inches tall. It has white fur with black brown stripes and a long, curly tail. It has eyes that are intense and give purposeful stares. Its 4 paws are soft and gentle. And don't ever, ever put it near water"? 
4. Use imagination. This includes using description but it also means using creativity. Content marketing means being able to tap into your well of imaginative words, descriptions, images, etc. Successful execution of this enables consumes to remember you on a deeper level and see how you can meet their needs. 
5. Use your voice. Write the way you speak while still being appropriate for your audience. If you cuss a lot, maybe it is best to avoid that but the point is to sound like a person, not a robot. No one likes reading something that sounds like it was automated. Ultimately, it does not matter if it was or not but we like to know that we deal with real people and something was hand-crafted. 

The best content marketing is done with a motivation to be remembered and talked about, not just gain eyes on your words. Don't let your business suffer from another subpar post or newsletter, contact Integraphix about your marketing. We have a team of dedicated professional copywriters who can help you or even handle the work entirely. 

How to Effectively Use Images for Online Marketing

Having a great content marketing strategy means having great text, obviously, but it also means having great images to go along with that text.

Having good images with your text adds a lot of value! It will add a lot of good SEO value to your posts via captions, meta descriptions, alt tags, etc. and it will also make your post much more appealing to the human reader. Images get noticed. According to research, content that has an image has a 94% better chance of being read than image-less content. If you do social media marketing, then posts/tweets with images are much more likely to get liked, retweeted, favorited, and shared than posts/tweets without images.

Depending on what your strategy is, then there are different images to suit you. What types of images are best to include in your strategy?

• Blogs. When doing a blog, an image is a must. Look at this blog, we have an image. They are used to wrap up the core message of the content and be helpful visuals for social media shares. 
• Products. When you have an e-commerce site, then images are an even bigger must. You can't have a successful e-commerce site without images. "The description says, "Awesome gray shirt" so I'll just take its word for it." Make sure the images are high-resolution. 
• Even if your site is non-ecommerce, using images helps your appeal. 
• Infographics. These can be huge for content. These are fantastic for social media, people love infographics because they share well and are often full of information people like to know. 

A main thing to remember is that you need to optimize your images! For proper optimization tips, contact Integraphix about search engine optimization and other marketing assistance.