7 Tech Predictions That Totally Missed the Mark

How far will technology advance in the next 20 years? That's kind of a difficult question to wrap your head around, isn't it?

Of course, that hasn't prevented people from offering up their own (sometimes bombastic) claims for what the future will hold.

From forecasting the demise of certain companies and technologies, to predicting the mass adoption of particular products, tech fortune-tellers have long been waxing philosophical about what's to come. 

But in many cases, these predictions have proven to be categorically, unequivocally, wrong.

Here are some of our favorite examples of tech predictions that completely missed the mark.

7 Tech Predictions That Totally Missed the Mark

1) "I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.” - Robert Metcalfe (1995)

Image Credit: Ohio University

This is one of the most well-known failed tech predictions. And the person who made the prediction, Robert Metcalfe (who co-invented Ethernet, FYI), even acknowledged how off the mark he was a few years after making the prediction. During a keynote speech at the International World Wide Web Conference, Metcalfe put a print version of his InfoWorld column that featured the infamous prediction in a food processor and -- quite literally -- ate his words.

2) "Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet -- which there isn't -- the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople." - Clifford Stoll (1995)

Image Credit: Newsweek

It turns out that Metcalfe wasn't the only seemingly intelligent person to predict the demise of the internet back in 1995. In an article for Newsweek, astronomer Clifford Stoll explained why the internet wouldn't be as transformative as many had been claiming. Specifically, Stoll called out the idea of "cyberbusiness" (read: ecommerce) as being totally impractical. As Stoll wrote:

We're promised instant catalog shopping -- just point and click for great deals. We'll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations, and negotiate sales contracts.

Flash forward to today and ... yep, we can do all that. What's more, in Q1 of 2016 alone, total ecommerce sales in the U.S. were around $92.8 billion. Needless to say, we've solved the whole "sending money over the internet" thing.

3) "I'd shut [Apple] down and give the money back to the shareholders." - Michael Dell (1997)

Image Credit: Inc.

This one isn't really phrased like a prediction, but it definitely hints at Dell CEO Michael Dell's vision of the future. The quote above was given in response to a question about what Dell would do with Apple if he were in Steve Jobs' shoes. (Jobs had just rejoined Apple at the time.)

Of course, when we look back now -- knowing that Apple is currently the most valuable brand on the planet -- Dell's plan for Apple's future seems incredibly foolish. But to be fair, lots of folks were discounting Apple at the time. Case in point, this quote from a 1996 Fortune article: "Apple's erratic performance has given it the reputation on Wall Street of a stock a long-term investor would probably avoid."

4) "Two years from now, spam will be solved." - Bill Gates (2004)

Image Credit: Tech Insider

I mean, come on. This one was just wishful thinking. At the 2004 World Economic Forum, Bill Gates made the bold claim that spam email would be gone in two years.

Bad news, Bill. It didn't happen. A report published in 2014 -- 10 years after Gates' prediction -- showed that, on average, 54 billion spam emails are sent everyday.

5) "Everyone’s always asking me when Apple will come out with a cell phone. My answer is, 'Probably never.'" - David Pogue (2006)

Image Credit: The New York Times

In 2006, the above quote from tech journalist David Pogue appeared in The New York Times. In 2007, Apple released the first generation of its iPhone. Sooo yeah, a definite swing and a miss.

But even after the iPhone was released, tech soothsayers still weren't sure it'd be a success ...

6) "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." - Steve Ballmer (2007)

Image Credit: The Telegraph

Back in 2007, then Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer thought the iPhone would be too expensive to earn widespread adoption. In an interview with USA Today, Ballmer even put a number on it. He argued the iPhone might end up with "2% or 3%" of the market share, but no more.

Ballmer was wrong. Apple ended 2015 claiming around 16% of the global smartphone market. And when we look at just the U.S., that market share figure jumps to 40%.

7) "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken Olsen (1977)

Image Credit: Boston.com

From the 1960s through their acquisition by Compaq in the 1990s, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was a major player in the American computer industry. But for founder and former president and chairman of DEC, Ken Olsen, the computer didn't seem like it would ever become a household consumer good (at least not in 1977, when Olsen made the comment above).

Today, more than 84% of U.S. households have computers.

Know of any other famously inaccurate tech predictions? Share them in the comments section below.

from HubSpot Marketing Blog http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/failed-tech-predictions
Via http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/failed-tech-predictions

How to Build Trust Online: 7 Little Ways to Create a Trustworthy Website

When it comes to establishing trust, it doesn’t matter how compelling your calls-to-action are, how engaging your content is, or how quickly your pages load on mobile screens. If visitors to your site have any doubts about how trustworthy you are, they’ll bounce right out and never come back.

Especially in the B2B sector, where the customer journey is increasingly self-service and often involves several months of careful deliberation, trust is a deal-breaking prerequisite for any sort of relationship building process. For B2B buyers to be open to engaging with you, they need to feel confident that you’ve got their best interests in mind for the long haul.

People’s guards go up when it comes to marketing and sales, simply because there have been too many cases of high-pressure, exploitative tactics over the generations.

In fact, while nearly half of us trust doctors and firefighters, only 3% trust salespeople and marketers, according to a new HubSpot Research study.

What’s more, our profession barely outranks stockbrokers, car salespeople, and politicians when it comes to trust. Even lawyers and baristas command more trust than we do.

Understanding NPS and the Trust Index

“How likely are you to recommend our brand to a friend or colleague, on a scale of 0 to 10?”

If you asked your customers -- both existing and potential -- to answer this questions, what would their responses look like?

This question serves as the basis for a metric known as net promotor score, or NPS. And it's incredibly important for marketers to keep a pulse on.

But before we dive into how it can be used to measure the trustworthiness of your brand or website, let's explore how it works. Essentially, the responses to this question get sorted into the following buckets:

• Those who respond with a score of 9 or 10 are considered loyal enthusiasts, or promoters, who are likely to fuel your growth through continued purchases and referrals.
• Those who respond with a score of 7 or 8 are considered passives. They are satisfied, but they’re also going to be open to offers from your competitors.
• Those with a score falling anywhere from 0 to 6 are considered detractors. They are relatively unhappy customers who risk damaging your brand and harm your growth through negative word-of-mouth.

You can now arrive at your NPS by simply subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. So if your entire roster of clients consists of detractors, your NPS is -100, and if they’re all promoters, your NPS is 100.

Your NPS is, of course, strongly linked to your perceived trustworthiness. Customers who trust your business are more likely to be promoters, and those who don’t trust you are much more likely to be detractors. If you have a higher NPS than your competitors, then your marketing is more likely to yield results, too.

What kinds of brands do your customers trust most? A quick perusal of Alignable's SMB Trust Index -- a report based on 7,500 ratings across 45 different SMB brands according to local business owners -- reveals some interesting patterns. For example, apparently small business owners deem Facebook (NPS 25) to be more trustworthy than LinkedIn (NPS 0). Verizon (NPS -12) over Comcast (NPS -59). QuickBooks (NPS 31) over FreshBooks (NPS 14).

What is it about these brands that makes one competitor more trustworthy than another? The data doesn’t offer any definitive answers, but there are plenty of measures you can take right now to maximize the impression of trustworthiness that your website exudes.

Here are seven tactics to try.

How to Build Trust Online: 7 Little Ways to Create a Trustworthy Website

1) Use authentic images.

Horribly generic and formulaic stock photos are everywhere. While there’s nothing wrong with using carefully curated stock imagery in the right places, it’s much better to favor website visuals that look like they were actually taken of you and your team in real situations.

Stock photos can get expensive, too. To truly maximize your site’s visual authenticity, you may want to consider hiring a professional photographer to take photos of your staff, products, and office. This way, you still get quality that will display well on your website and work well for other content assets, but authenticity will shine through to your audience.

There are also some great free online libraries of stock photos out there. The images on offer here are generally not going to be as specific to your content concept as something original or purchased, but they’re certainly visually compelling and have plenty of distinctive flavor. Three especially useful sites in this regard:

• Igor Ovsyannykov’s Fancy Crave. This resource boasts seven categorized archive sections and two new photo posts per day
• Death to Stock. Check out this resources for themed monthly downloadable photo packs and “maker” movement ethos.
• Unsplash. Look here for highly curated images that favor elegant still lives and serenely stark landscapes.

2) Provide social proof via testimonials.

Social proof plays a big role in creating trust. Reach out to your clients every time you complete a project and ask them to provide feedback for display on your website.

Whenever possible, include a photo of the person, which helps to drive home the authenticity to the testimonial. Here’s an example of a visually compelling testimonial from the homepage of Sisense, a leading business intelligence software provider.

3) Create helpful content resources.

No one likes a constant sales pitch, and most visitors won’t be anywhere near ready to buy the first time they visit your website, anyway.

Instead of content that screams, Buy these products now, because they’re the most awesome things ever!, aim to publish resources that show the benefit of your product or service, without overtly selling. Creating helpful content, designed to help solve audience problems and address their pain points, is critical when building trust.

Many of your prospects will be looking for the same information, so use your website to provide it to them. Use your blog to explore the issues that matter most to your buyer personas and to showcase interesting ways to use your solutions. Share case studies to demonstrate how your other clients and customers have benefited from your offering to solve their issues.

A particularly excellent example is BuzzSumo’s Knowledge Base, which features a “Use Cases” section, allowing the social media analysis platform’s audience to learn more about the app in the context of how they’re likely to actually benefit from it:

4) Provide social proof via media logos.

Earned media commands more trust than messages on paid or owned properties. Sure, we all know that in the age of “native advertising,” the lines between journalism and sponsored promotions have blurred, but there’s still a certain mystique in being able to say that The Washington Post, for example, has found your company noteworthy enough to mention it in an article.

Those “as seen on” montages of publisher logos that you see on many B2B websites are great for boosting confidence at a glance. Are you getting any decent press? Make sure your website visitors know about it.

Below we can see the power of media logos in a screenshot from entrepreneur John Rampton’s website.

 

5) Provide social proof via client and partner logos.

We’ve already touched on how important social proof is, but the opportunities here extend well beyond testimonials and media logos. You can also use client and partner logos to show who your allies are. People will recognize larger brands, but even unknowns can make an impression.

Knowing you’re good enough to work with those partners goes a long way in convincing someone you’re good enough to work with them, too. Check out how renowned growth consultant Sujan Patel uses all three types of trust-building social proof at the top of his homepage:

6) Include microcopy that sets expectations intuitively.

Behind all mistrust is fear of the unknown. Make it abundantly clear to your site visitors what’s going to happen when they click on your site’s various tabs, CTA buttons, and links. And make sure your navigation labels are extremely intuitive.

Quick disclaimers and labels below buttons are useful, too. If a prospect chooses to opt in to your email list, how often should they expect to hear from you? Will you sell them out to a telemarketing agency, or will you keep their contact information under wraps?

When the experience of interfacing with your business matches what you say it’ll be -- a button takes people where you said it would and you email them only as often as you pledged to, for example -- people will allow themselves to trust what you have to say.

Below is a prime example of trust-amplifying, expectation-managing microcopy from the newsletter signup page of inbound marketing agency IMPACT Branding & Design.

7) Put the audience in the center of stories you tell.

When you write content, or have someone write your content for you, make sure to use the word “you.” It works as a placeholder for the reader’s name, which helps to disarm people and help them be more receptive to your message.

Research suggests that some people were more likely to marry someone with the same initials as them -- that’s how powerful your name is. On the other hand, using a person’s name too much comes off as creepy, so you have to be careful with it. “You” places the reader in your content as if you are speaking directly to them and involving them, without the risks of using their name too much.

This principle extends well beyond word choice. Instead of turning people off by making your content all about your company and its solutions, publish stories of empowerment where the audience is the hero.

Business management platform WorkflowMax does this extremely well with their website messaging, which emphases the product’s benefits to the audience:

Avoid Tripping Those Trust Alarms

Build your website and other brand presences with these tips in mind, and you’ll have a leg up on building customer trust. By amping up on your company’s credibility, your visitors will feel safe engaging with you.

How do you inspire trust on your website? Share your tips and tricks in the comments below.

from HubSpot Marketing Blog http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/more-trustworthy-website
Via http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/more-trustworthy-website

The Demographics of Developers Around the World [Infographic]

If there were 100 developers in the world, how many would be women? Which countries would they live in? How many would be pros, and how many would be hobbyists? What coding language would they speak?

These are the kinds of questions the folks at VisionMobile wanted to know -- which is why they surveyed over 30,000 developers for their annual Developer Economics survey, and then illustrated their findings in the infographic below.

Their findings are pretty interesting. For example, a whopping 94% of developers are male. And while 77% of developers are professionals, a significant minority are creating software just for the fun of it.

Check out the infographic below from VisionMobile to see what other interesting statistics they uncovered about developers around the world.

from HubSpot Marketing Blog http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/developers-demographic-survey
Via http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/developers-demographic-survey

How to Use Facebook for Business: 25 Facebook Marketing Tips and Tricks

Although some of the younger demographics are passing up Facebook in favor of tools like Instagram and Snapchat, Facebook still dominates the market.

With 1.09 billion people logging in daily (a 16% increase year-over-year), it's still the most popular social network around. Not to mention, Facebook owns 77% of all social logins.

If you want your business' content to reach consumers, having a presence on Facebook is a given. But to make the most of your Facebook Page -- to attract and engage visitors, drive them to your website, and convert them into leads (and, eventually, customers) -- you need to optimize your Facebook presence.

We know that learning all the nuances of various social networks can be a tricky and time-consuming feat, especially considering how frequently they add, remove, and modify features.

To help you stay ahead of the curve, we've put together a handy cheat sheet that businesses and marketers can use to make the most of Facebook. The list is divided into three main categories depending on your goals for using Facebook:

1. Tips for Your Facebook Business Page
2. Tips for News Feed Visibility
3. Tips for Advertising on Facebook

25 Tips and Tricks for Marketing on Facebook

Tips for Your Facebook Business Page

1) Create a business Page, not a personal profile.

First thing's first: You need to create a business Page -- not a personal profile -- to represent your brand. Pages look similar to personal profiles, but they include unique tools for businesses, brands, and organizations. Your fans can Like your Page to see updates from you in their News Feeds, which is something they can't do for personal profiles. 

Not only will this maximize Facebook's business potential for you, but it's actually against Facebook's Terms of Service to use a personal account to represent something other than that person, like a business. If you've already created a profile for your business, you'll want to convert it into a business Page, which you can learn how to do easily here.

Setting up a page is simple. Just visit this page and follow the step-by-step setup instructions.

2) Claim your Page's vanity URL.

Once you've created your business Page, it'll get a randomly assigned number and URL, like facebook.com/pages/yourbusiness/123456789. To make your Page more shareable and easier to find, you'll want to create a recognizable vanity URL (e.g., http://www.facebook.com/hubspot).

To create a vanity URL, visit this page, then follow the instructions. 

3) Add a great cover photo.

Facebook's page design lets you feature a 851 x 315 pixel cover photo at the top of your business Page. You'll want to optimize that cover photo to capture the attention of new visitors, encourage them to explore and learn more, and provide an effective mobile experience  -- all the while ensuring you're following Facebook's Page Guidelines.

Learn all about do's and don'ts for your Facebook cover photo in this blog post.

Here are some more awesome examples of business Page cover photos to get your creative juices flowing.

4) Add a recognizable profile picture.

Pick a profile picture that will be easy for visitors to recognize -- like your company logo, or a headshot of yourself if you're a solopreneur or consultant. Being recognizable is important for getting found and Liked, especially in Facebook Search. Your profile image is pictured at the top of your Facebook Page and is also the thumbnail image that gets displayed next to all your Facebook Page updates, so choose wisely.

When choosing a photo, keep in mind that Facebook requires your profile picture dimensions to be 180 pixels by 180 pixels (even though the image will display as 160 pixels by 160 pixels on desktop computers).

5) Optimize your "About" section -- especially the preview.

Your "About" section is one of the first places people will look when they arrive on your Page. A preview of it is located on the left-hand side of your page beneath your profile picture, and people can also navigate to the full section by clicking on the "About" tab at the top of your page.

Be sure to optimize the preview section on the left side of your page with brief yet descriptive copy to give visitors a sense of what your Page and your business is about before they decide to Like you. This copy will get pulled from the "Short Description" you provide within your full "About" tab.

Here's an example video marketing software company Wistia:

And another from a restaurant called Tahaza Hummus Kitchen:

To edit your own "About" tab, click on it, hover over the section you'd like to edit, and click the pencil icon. 

6) Earn the "Very responsive to messages" badge.

If you respond quickly to most users who send you messages on Facebook, then you can earn what Facebook calls a "Very responsive to messages" badge. You'll earn a "Very responsive to messages" badge below your Page's cover photo if you have a response rate of 90% and a response time of 15 minutes over the last seven days.

  

If you're responsive to messages but haven't quite earned the badge, Facebook will still show off how responsive you are to visitors. Here's an example from Zappos' Page:

If you're not very responsive to messages, nothing will appear. So, while it's not the end of the world if you don't respond, having that badge lets users know your business is listening and cares about their needs.

By the way, there's a lot you can do with Facebook's "Messages" tool for businesses. We recommend you explore and make the most out of Facebook as a communication and support tool.

Image Credit: Facebook

7) Add milestones.

The "Milestones" feature lets you highlight some of your business' biggest accomplishments, like award wins, product releases, major events, or other accolades. Recent milestones will be posted to your Timeline, and users will be able to find them later under your "About" tab.

To add milestones, click on the "Timeline" section of your Page, and click the "Offer, Event +" option in the page update composer near the top of your page.

9) Choose a call-to-action button.

Facebook added a very handy feature in December 2014: the option to place a simple call-to-action button at the top of your Facebook Page. You can learn how to add a CTA button to your business' Facebook Page here.

You can choose from seven pre-made button options ("Sign Up," "Shop Now," "Contact Us," "Book Now," "Use App," Watch Video," and "Play Game") and link it to any website that aligns with your business' goals. It could link to your homepage, a landing page, a contact sheet, a video, or somewhere else.

10) Create custom page tabs.

By default, your page tabs are set as Timeline, About, Photos, Likes and More. But Facebook lets you create and leverage custom tabs -- which are basically like landing pages within your Facebook Page, or calls-to-action where you can feature anything from case studies to marketing offers to other promotions you're running.

They're right at the top of your page and let you give visitors specific path to do what you want them to do on your Page. For example, if you're hiring a lot of people, you might create a custom tab for "Jobs" that links to your jobs site, like Zendesk does on their Page:

You can create custom tabs by signing in, visiting your Page, clicking the "More" tab and choosing "Manage Tabs" from the dropdown menu. (Read this blog post for further instructions.)

Tips for News Feed Visibility

11) Prioritize quality over quantity.

Here are two questions we hear a lot: How often should I post to Facebook? Will posting more frequently will help me reach more people?

In short, the answer is no. At the end of the day, how visible your posts are in people's News Feeds all comes down to the quality of your posts. These algorithms are meant to filter out the irrelevant and the poor quality posts so that the highest-quality stuff is what gets through and gets shown to users.

So don't overwhelm your customers with content on Facebook, and be selective about what you're publishing. Spend more time crafting better Facebook posts, and less time crafting a lot of Facebook posts. Remember: It's a marketer's job to post content to social that's interesting, entertaining, helpful, and/or relevant to the audience. This means picking relevant topics, writing delightful copy, and posting compelling images and videos.

12) Post at the best times for your audience.

Another common question: When’s the best time to post to Facebook? Unfortunately, there's no perfect answer -- different businesses may find different days and times work best for them. Timing often depends on what your target audience uses Facebook for, the region(s) you're targeting, the content of your post (e.g. funny or serious), and your goals (e.g. clicks versus shares), and so on.

That being said, there is data out there on optimal times to post on Facebook: 

• The best time to post on Facebook is 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday. Other optimal times include 12:00–1:00 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays and 1:00–4:00 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays.
• Engagement rates are 18% higher on Thursdays and Fridays, and weekdays from 1:00–4:00 p.m. tend to see the highest clickthrough rates. On Fridays, Facebook use spikes by 10%. Since people tend to be happier on Fridays, Neil Patel suggests posting funny or upbeat content to match your audience's mood.
• The worst times to post on Facebook are weekends before 8:00 a.m. and after 8:00 p.m., according to SurePayroll's research.

Think of this data as a general guideline, and use it to help you find the optimal posting times for your business. 

13) Post your best blog content.

For businesses, social media continues to be driven by content. It's a marketer's job to post content to social that's interesting, entertaining, helpful, and/or relevant to our audience. Start populating your Page's timeline with content by handpicking your best, most helpful blog posts.

If you're strapped for resources but maintain a business blog, you can try connecting your blog to auto-post links to new blog content you publish. Many blogging platforms (like HubSpot) automatically offer this feature within the software -- you'll just need to turn it on and sync it with your Page. You don't want to put too much emphasis on automation, though. It's OK to auto-publish some content, but make sure a real human is posting and engaging with your fans, too.

14) Make sure your blog posts' meta descriptions are complete.

Have you noticed that when you post a link to Facebook, it pulls in a brief description as well as an image?

The description gets pulled from the page's meta description, which refers to the HTML attribute that explains the contents of a given web page. It's the short description you see on a search engine results page to "preview" what the page is about, and it's also the copy Facebook will automatically pull in the populate the description of a post.

Without a meta description, Facebook may pull in the first text they can find, which doesn't make for a very good user experience. Plus, meta descriptions are your chance to sell your visitors on what you have to offer: informative, valuable content.

Your meta description should be compelling enough to get people to click, and it should be 155 characters or fewer in length. Read this blog post to learn more about writing effective meta descriptions.

15) Remove links from your post copy.

Keep your copy succinct by removing the horrendously long URL you're sharing from the text in your post.

Your post real estate is precious, and you want to ensure any characters employed are purely for the sake of sparking a reader's attention. Plus, any user can click on the generated thumbnail or title for that URL to navigate to the blog post, web page, or any URL you're linking to -- so no need to include it in the copy of your post as well.

16) Post your most compelling visual content.

Facebook's new timeline page design places more of an emphasis on visual content like images and videos. After all, Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than posts without images. One study found that Facebook posts with photos saw the most engagement over any other type of post, accounting for a whopping 87% of total interactions.

That's why posting compelling visual content is one of the most important things you can do to improve your Facebook strategy. Use this to your advantage posting your best visual content to your Facebook Page, or making more of an effort to make the content you already create more visual. (Click here to download 100+ social media image templates for free.)

A successful social strategy will often include photos, videos, and screenshots of infographics or other graphs. In addition to being fun to look at, it's important that your visual content be compelling and relevant to your audience.

Another reason to post lots of visual content? It'll help auto-populate the "Photos" and "Videos" tabs, which are automatically added to every Facebook Page. You want those to be rife with visual content when people click on them.

17) Make sure your images are properly formatted.

Don't just post images for the sake of posting images. To give your users the best experience possible, you need to optimize your images for Facebook so that they're the right sizes and dimensions. (Click here to download pre-sized cover photo templates for Facebook and other social networks for free.)

Below are a few of the most common Facebook image sizes, but you can find a more detailed guide here.

• Cover photo: 851 px wide by 315 px tall
• Profile image: 180 px wide by 180 px tall
• Highlighted image: 1200 px wide by 717 px tall
• Shared image: 1200 px wide by 630 px tall
• Shared link thumbnail image: 1200 px wide by 627 px tall

18) Post videos, especially live videos.

The folks at Facebook know that people like watching videos on Facebook. The number of people watching video content is rapidly increasing: Between April 2015 and November 2015, the amount of average daily video views on Facebook doubled from four billion video views per day to eight billion.

Facebook is continuing to tweak how the algorithm measures people's interest in video content on Facebook, but the main takeaway is to make your videos as visually engaging as possible -- especially in the first few seconds.

Why? Because although all videos on Facebook autoplay in people's News Feeds, they're on mute until the viewer manually turns the volume on. The more visually engaging your video, the more you can entice people to stick around. Getting people to spend more time watching your video will help your video rank higher in the News Feed because to Facebook, signs of user engagement with a video include spending time watching the video, turning on the audio, switching to full-screen mode, or enabling high definition.

In their continued effort to promote video content in the News Feed, Facebook recently launched Facebook Live, a live video streaming service that lets anyone broadcast live videos from their mobile device straight to their Facebook News Feed. Use Facebook Live to your advantage, as Facebook ranks Live videos higher than other videos and other types of posts.

19) Use Facebook Insights.

Facebook Insights is Facebook's internal analytics tool right that helps you measure and analyze your Facebook presence. The tool provides Facebook page administrators with analytics data about Page visits and engagement, which can help you understand which content is and isn't engaging to your fans.

Access your page's Insights here, or by clicking into the 'Admin Panel' on your Page. We've also published an informative blog post and video that walk you through how to analyze Facebook Insights to improve your content strategy.

20) Schedule posts in advance.

Scrambling for Facebook content is not a new phenomenon. We have meetings. We run late. Things come up. That's why you'll want to use a third-party Facebook application like HubSpot's social media publishing tool to schedule your Facebook posts (and other social media posts) in advance.

First, download our free social media content calendar template to help plan your posts in advance. You can fill it in at the same day and time every single week to prep for the following week's social media content. Then, use that third-party Facebook application to actually schedule out your posts.

However, just as we advised against too much Facebook automation with blog auto-posting, the same holds true for scheduling. Don't get caught in the trap of turning your page into a robot, and make sure you're actively engaging with your fans, too.

21) Add Facebook social media buttons to your blog and website.

Adding Facebook social media buttons will help encourage visitors who are on your website to also connect and interact with you on Facebook, as well as spread your content and expand its reach.

The Facebook Follow Button lets you expand your Facebook reach by making it easy for your site visitors to Like your business' Facebook Page with just one click. It displays your page's number of Likes, as well as faces of people who already like your page, using social proof to amplify its effectiveness.

To customize your button, visit this page and follow the instructions.

The Facebook Like Box lets you promote your business' Facebook Page on your website and blog, highlight other users who have already Liked your page, display your follower count, and feature recent posts on your page. With just one click, people can Like your business Page -- without leaving your site. 

To generate a Facebook Like Box for your website, visit this page and follow the instructions.

The Facebook Like Button lets people easily Like your content. When a user Likes a piece of content, it may show up in your friends' News Feeds because the algorithm takes it as a signal your friends will find it relevant. 

(Note: This button doesn't allow them to add personalized messages to links before sharing them. To allow users to add a personalized message, use the Facebook Share Button, explained below.)

To customize your Facebook Like Button, visit this page and follow the instructions.

Facebook Share Buttons act similarly to the Like Button by sharing your content on their Timeline and in friends' News Feeds, except they also let people add a comment or message to the link when sharing it.

To generate a Facebook Share Button, visit this page and follow the instructions.

22) Subscribe to Facebook's Official Blog for future announcements from Facebook.

Give yourself a competitive edge by staying on top of the latest announcements from Facebook such as new features and tools by subscribing to the official Facebook Blog.

Tips For Advertising on Facebook

23) Choose the right advertising tool. (Probably the Ads Manager.)

Facebook offers users two different tools for creating a paid ad: the Ads Manager and the Power Editor. The Power Editor is usually best for larger advertisers looking for more precise control over many campaigns. If that doesn't sound like you, the Ads Manager works great for most companies. Figure out which is best for your business based on your company size and the number of ads you plan to run at once. 

24) Use Audience Insights to learn about your audience.

The best Facebook ads are high-quality, relevant ads that fit seamlessly into the user's environment on Facebook. Learn more about your customers and prospects using Audience Insights, which you can find inside the Facebook Ad Manager in the left-hand navigation.

The tool will help you target your ads more effectively and learn about your audience -- even if you are not advertising to them. How? The data can help you build stronger buyer personas, create more compelling content, and uncover some gems for your competitive research. (Read this step-by-step guide to Audience Insights for more detailed instructions and tips.)

25) Test multiple versions of a single ad.

Running a single campaign won't give you much to work with in terms of finding your audience, optimizing your ads, and determining if Facebook advertising works for your business. You need to be able and willing to run multiple campaigns to test and experiment with different parts of a single campaign.

Test your targeting first, using a simple advertisement and basic image, suggest the Brian Carter for Convince & Convert. "There are usually at least five to ten ways you could target your prospects," he says. "Find the one or two audiences that convert best at the lowest cost per lead."

In order to reach and test on a wider audience, you're going to have to invest a reasonable amount of money on your campaign. The folks at BuzzSumo suggest that number be in the thousands. The reason for this? Facebook ads reward you for testing more ads and targets. Whereas cost-per-click doesn't change much when you're advertising on Google or LinkedIn, Facebook ads cost a lot less if you're diligently testing them.

Then, you can test the creative side of the ad, including images, headlines, and body text. Try testing 20–25 variations on your proven targets: "You aren’t really doing Facebook ads well until you’ve created 15–20 ads," says Carter. 

Read this blog post to learn more about creating, optimizing, and analyzing your Facebook ads.

What other Facebook marketing tips and tricks would you recommend for making the most of a business' Facebook presence?

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in September 2011 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

 

from HubSpot Marketing Blog http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/24422/The-Ultimate-Facebook-Marketing-Cheat-Sheet.aspx
Via http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/24422/The-Ultimate-Facebook-Marketing-Cheat-Sheet.aspx

4 Techniques to Optimize Your Nonprofit Newsletter

The monthly or bimonthly newsletter is a well-known pillar of nonprofit communications. Organizations use this content piece to educate supporters about their latest achievements and projects, keep donors engaged over time, and lead them to deeper levels of support.

With the outrageous number of messages that the average person receives online, organizations need to optimize their emails or risk ending up in the trash folder. Here are several tips to make sure your nonprofit newsletter reaches supporters and keeps them engaged.

1) Establish the Right Frequency

The frequency of your nonprofit newsletter can make all the difference between staying in subscribers’ inboxes and ending up in their trash—or, worse yet, being unsubscribed from altogether. The key is to send consistent, relevant content often enough to stay top of mind without annoying readers.

Unfortunately, there’s no single correct frequency for all newsletters. Every organization’s subscriber lists have different makeups, so you’ll need to perform tests to understand how often to communicate with your audience. A good starting point is to send an email at least once a month, or once every two weeks. You can then continue to conduct tests on samples from your subscriber list to determine an emailing frequency that generates the highest open and click-through rates.

2) Focus on Subject Lines

Without a great subject line, all of the hard work you put into crafting a fantastic email can go to waste. A generic “January/February/March Newsletter” likely won’t cut it; it’s crucial to invest the time and effort to come up with an intriguing subject line for each of your emails that will make readers want to click.

Your subject lines should be clear, descriptive, and tell readers exactly what they need to know and why it matters. Brevity is also key. Always aim for under 50 characters, but given that the majority of email opens occur on mobile, you may want to focus on subject lines that are 20 characters or less to account for smaller screens. 

In any case, you want to deliver the most important information at the beginning of your subject line so that it can’t be missed. With such little real estate, make sure to cut out any words that don’t add value or let readers know why your email is worth their time. Also consider playing with subject lines that create a knowledge gap, intriguing readers to click through to learn more.

Here’s a snapshot of three nonprofit emails that all play with some of these tactics. The first and third emails listed here create a knowledge gap in their subject lines that makes readers want to find out what they’re talking about. The second email’s subject line is succinct while delivering the most important information right away.

Also notice how these emails all approach their “from” name differently. Whether you use your organization’s name, throw in the word “team” or “staff,” or use the name of a staff member, test different sender names to see which performs best.

3) Prioritize Attractive Design

Your email design should be clean, simple, and easy to read. Its design should guide the reader’s eye linearly from top to bottom, and it should be easy to quickly scroll and read through on a mobile device. For this reason, opt for a single-column layout. This will keep smartphone users happier, since readers on smaller screens would have to scroll horizontally to see a full multi-column email. In any case, you should be delivering responsive emails that adapt beautifully to any screen size in order to accommodate readers who are on the go.

All of your nonprofit newsletters should reiterate your visual branding elements, such as fonts, logo, and signature colors. When you keep these elements consistent across your communications, you reinforce your brand identity, boost your professionalism, and help readers recognize your messages.

Check out how Shining Hope for Communities begins their newsletter with a header image displaying their logo. A high-quality header image is also a great way to quickly capture your reader’s attention as soon as they open your email.  

4) Make It Scannable 

Your readers are typically on the move, especially if they’re reading from their mobile device. Combine this with the fact that the average attention span maxes out at eight seconds, and this means that most people will only spend a few moments reading your email. To sustain their attention and increase your chances of readers clicking through to your website, your messages need to be scannable.

Here are a few tips:

Use bullet points and subheadings where possible. This visually organizes your information and helps readers quickly scan and pick up the main topics. Also determine which information is most important to include in this email. Remember that you can link out to more details and facts with a “Learn More” button, so avoid packing your nonprofit newsletter with unnecessary text.

Use enlarged font sizes. Your text should be legible across mobile devices. To accommodate for small screens, HubSpot recommends using 14 px as a minimum font size for body copy, and 22 px for headlines.

Weave images throughout your newsletter. Not only do high-quality images enhance the overall look of your email and keep readers engaged, they also help break up walls of text and make your newsletter easier to skim. Consider using images of your donors, fundraisers, volunteers, beneficiaries, or photos from the field to delineate each section of your email. 

Keep in mind that some desktop clients and mobile email apps block images by default. To get around this issue, make sure to add alt text, or alternative text, to your images. When images are disabled, the alt text appears in their place, giving readers context that would otherwise be lost.

Balance your text-to-image ratio. Emails with a lot of images may trigger some of your donors’ spam filters, so be sure to balance your images with live text (rather than only using images that display the text). Opt for a 1:1 ratio.

Use whitespace. Whitespace is the blank space between graphics, text, images, and other visual elements on a page. It’s a key component of effective design that draws readers’ eyes to important items in your email—like your CTAs, key text, or images—as well as keeps your newsletter from feeling cluttered. Think of it as giving your readers’ eyes some “breathing room” between your different content pieces.

A well-crafted, beautifully designed newsletter can be a powerful tool to keep supporters engaged with your work. As you optimize different elements of your email, it’s important that you continue to run tests to find what content, delivery schedule, and design work best with your subscriber list. Some extra attention can improve the overall open and engagement rates of your nonprofit newsletter and ultimately power your success.  

from HubSpot Marketing Blog http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/4-techniques-to-optimize-your-nonprofit-newsletter
Via http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/4-techniques-to-optimize-your-nonprofit-newsletter