Using Hashtags to Find Influencers on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

October 29, 2019October 29, 2019 by Saif Ajani

Finding influencers has become much easier over time – especially with the explosive growth of social media and information that is now available.

You can use available data from social networks and social media analytics tools to rank their influence objectively.

Using hashtags will bring your influencer marketing to the next level by filtering out influencers based on your contextual needs.

For example, if you’re looking for influencers to promote the Audi A4, you don’t need to use generic users who are influential in ‘cars’ — that’s too broad!

Instead, hashtags like #AudiA4 can help you find influencers with true reach and power over their audience to promote the Audi A4.

Want to learn how?

This article will walk you through some simple methods to find influencers on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook using hashtags.

Jump Links:

Instagram
Twitter
Facebook

Instagram

If you’re looking to find social influencers, Instagram is a great place to start.

Instagram has grown to be larger than Twitter, and is definitely a tool you should incorporate into your social strategy if you haven’t already.

One simple way to find social influencers on Instagram is to search for relevant hashtags, such as #AudiA4, and take a peek at the profiles of images that appear in the Top Posts of the hashtag.

You can also use a tool like Keyhole to track hashtags and sort results by highest number of engagements or likes.

You can peruse the profile and compare against metrics such as engagement to determine if they are a viable fit.

When checking their profile, you can also check to see if they have an email on their profile, identify as an influencer, blogger, or have their own website.

Twitter

Twitter is another lucrative platform where you can find influencers.

Many users use Twitter as a direct distribution method, sharing their thoughts, opinions, and resources such as blog posts.

To use Twitter to find influencers, use the search bar and type in the relevant hashtag you’d like to search.

We’ll continue to use #AudiA4 as our example.

You’ll see a timeline of tweets for that particular hashtag. Twitter defaults to displaying the top search results, but you can also sort by latest Tweets, people, photos, and videos.

You can scroll through the list and begin to find influencers for your brand.

Some key metrics to examine when identifying influencers on Twitter are engagement, including Retweets and Likes.

You can click on their profile to learn more about the user, and examine metrics such as their follower count.

Facebook

Hashtags on Facebook are typically used less in comparison to platforms such as Twitter and Instagram, but there is still a plethora of opportunity to find influencers on Facebook.

In the Facebook search bar, type in the hashtag relevant to your industry that you want to search.

You will see all posts show up. You can choose to filter the search results by who the posts are coming from, post type, tagged locations, date posted, and more.

Explore a users profile to determine if they are a suitable influencer for your campaign.

Using hashtags to find influencers on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter will help identify users who may already be positively engaging with your brand, and will be a good fit for your marketing campaigns.

You can also use Keyhole to identify top influencers within a tracked keyword.

Keyhole is a real-time conversation tracker that provides keyword and hashtag analytics for Twitter and Instagram. Get started for free.

5 Valuable Hashtag Marketing Strategies Proven to Engage Audiences

October 24, 2019October 17, 2019 by Keyhole

Hashtag Marketing Strategies to Engage Followers

Updated on October 17th, 2019.

Using hashtags effectively goes beyond casually plugging them into your tweets and posts.

On platforms such as Twitter and Instagram, calculated hashtag marketing can boost impressions, make your content more searchable and encourage users to talk about your brand.

Learning how to leverage tagged topics should be a priority for marketers.

Jump Links:

1. Brand Hashtags
2. Trending Hashtags
3. Chat Hashtags
4. Content Reflecting Hashtags
5. Call-to-Action Hashtags

Here are five hashtag marketing strategies that social media teams have successfully used to engage their target audiences:

1. Brand Hashtags

Think of a brand hashtag as your signature. Unique to your business, it should be a concise and relevant slogan you include when sharing original content.

Encourage followers to use it as well. This way, they’ll have a clear method of sharing posts with you and others interested in your company’s products or services.

The online community will also know how to find content about your brand.

Why Brand Hashtags Successfully Engage Audiences

A brand hashtag is a way for users to let the social community know what they think about your company. Instead of just sending you a message, they’re speaking to their followers and other users who look for tagged posts.

Everyone stands to benefit, because:

You build a discussion around your brand, encouraging the online community to learn more about your products and services while promoting them. Ideally, consumers will also follow links you share.

Those using the hashtag will draw attention to their posts, possibly earning more followers.

As a bonus, you can run a promotional contest. For example, the person who creates the most-shared post using your hashtag will win a prize at the end of each month.

Everyone loves to win. Just watch engagement steadily rise.

Example: #WinnersFabFinds

Winners, a popular Canadian apparel store, uses #WinnersFabFinds across all social channels. Both catchy and unique, Winners promotes the brand hashtag both online and in-store. Another great example of effective hashtag marketing.

With more than 4,500 posts, here’s what #WinnersFabFinds looks like on Instagram:

View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Eleni Kyri (@bijuleni) on Nov 15, 2017 at 5:01am PST

Customers share content, while Winners gets original pictures of them enjoying products.

Measure any hashtag you want, including brand hashtags, using Keyhole.

When a high volume of users include a specific hashtag in their posts, it “trends.”

Social media platforms have different ways of displaying trending topics. For example, trending topics on Twitter displays on the top right side of the screen, and Facebook has a trending section on the top-right corner of your screen:

Constantly changing in real-time, a trending hashtag can last for days or mere minutes.

When you see a trend that relates to your business, don’t hesitate to engage in it with relevant content.

Why They Successfully Engage Audiences

By sharing content through a trending hashtag, it’ll be seen by a group larger than your contacts and followers.

In a sense, your audience can be limitless — anyone who clicks on the trending topic can see your post. And if that post is witty, original or informative, the shares it generates will further boost impressions and comments.

Example: #CollegeIn5Words

When #CollegeIn5Words trended on Twitter, Denny’s Diner furthered its reputation as a company with a funny social media presence.

"procrastination: a 3am denny's run" #collegein5words
— Denny's (@DennysDiner) May 6, 2015

Being funny in this situation has its benefits, as Denny’s earned an enviable amount of likes and retweets. Not to mention all the replies it received, with people tagging their followers to share a laugh.

3. Chat Hashtags

Popular on Twitter, you can use chat hashtags to discuss a topic with users who are interested in the subject matter.

This is a form of hashtag marketing that calls for users to be directly engaging with a brand or an individual.

There are a plethora of industry and audience specific chat hashtags.

Chats are typically held at set times, sometimes involving one user asking questions and others giving their thoughts.

You can also start and promote your own, giving your brand more exposure. Make sure the hashtag is short – encouraging meaningful conversation is key, so it’s best not to deeply cut into Twitter’s 140-character limit.

Why They Successfully Engage Audiences

People want to talk about topics they’re passionate about, so Twitter chats can give you access to a receptive audience. With a popular chat hashtag, that audience is already established and waiting to be engaged.

What’s more, contributing to a Twitter chat can boost engagement by letting you:

Connect with like-minded individuals. Many people may be interested in your company, but not know about it. Using a chat hashtag is a way of informing them about your ideas, as well as your products or services.

Demonstrate your expertise on relevant topics. If people are invested in a certain subject, they want to know more about it. Sharing your content can spark meaningful conversations.

Example: #TMLTalk

During every Toronto Maple Leafs game, #TMLTalk is a trending topic. The team with the NHL’s largest fan base interacts with supporters using the hashtag, encouraging them to share opinions and content.

Dion is playing with some swagger tonight. Physical, jumping into rushes and getting pucks on net from the point. #TMLtalk
— Paul Hendrick (@HennyTweets) December 31, 2015

Fans are passionate – giving them an online forum helps them interact with fellow enthusiasts.

Organizations such as news sites can also use the hashtag to share stories and earn clicks. Meanwhile, the Maple Leafs organization gains another way to build, and communicate with, a dedicated audience.

4. Content-Reflecting Hashtags

Content-reflecting hashtags don’t have to be trending or even popular, per se. They’re not specific to your brand, either.

They’re simply tagged words that relate to a posts’ content. For example, a tweet about social media ads may contain “#digitalmarketing.” A post about a tourist attraction may include the city’s name, and so on.

Why They Successfully Engage Audiences

Think of content-reflecting hashtags as a way of optimizing content for search. Audience members may stumble upon your posts when looking for the words you tag.

This is useful for companies that:

Sell physical products
Operate in a set location
Participate in events
Share posts about niche topics that don’t trend or necessarily merit a brand hashtag

Content-reflecting hashtags become valuable when consumers perform general searches to find a certain item or learn more about a given subject. Being an early result can certainly earn you a click, reply or follow.

Example: #CleanEating

#CleanEating is a popular Instagram hashtag that carries over onto Twitter and other social platforms.

For example, here’s a typical post that would be associated with the hashtag:

#CleanEating Salmon With Sweet Potato – https://t.co/vCAhkI44Ex #recipe pic.twitter.com/7pTViYqo70
— spicers1976 (@spicers1976) January 3, 2016

Although it’s dominated by pictures of home cooking, a health foods store or restaurant could certainly leverage the hashtag to potentially earn comments or clicks to their website.

If used in conjunction with a location hashtag, an in-person visit also wouldn’t be out of the question.

5. Call-to-Action Hashtags

The goal of a call-to-action (CTA) hashtag? Encourage the online community to perform a specific action involving your brand.

It’s a traditional marketing concept that’s applied to social media.

A CTA hashtag usually starts with a verb, such as “share” or “talk.” Then, it should have a few short words that give additional instruction.

For example, a mental health organization may have a hashtag called “#TalkAboutMentalHealth.”

When a CTA hashtag gains traction, you’ll see posts across social platforms involving people taking appropriate action.

Why They Successfully Engage Audiences

Social media users follow CTA hashtags because they:

Feel like they’re contributing to an important cause.
- Going back to the mental health example, people would follow such a hashtag because they feel as though they’re challenging the stigma of certain illnesses.

Think the action is genuinely fun. Who wouldn’t want to take a silly picture or share an interesting story?

Earn a sense of participation. If your friends are posting with a certain hashtag, it’s natural to want to contribute.

That being said, a CTA should be doable. You likely won’t engage your audience by encouraging an action that’s almost impossible.

Example: #ShareACoke

Coca-Cola’s #ShareACoke campaigns harnessed the power of a fun CTA and became a wildly-successful hashtag marketing initiative.

Creating cans and bottles that read “Share a Coke With …” followed by a name, the company encouraged social media users to post pictures of themselves sharing the drink with friends and family.

Generating almost 700,000 Instagram posts, here’s a look at an example:

View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Eleni Kyri (@bijuleni) on Nov 15, 2017 at 5:01am PST

Generating almost 700,000 Instagram posts, here’s a look at an example:

Like a brand hashtag, this particular CTA campaign benefits the company and individual users. The users get to share content with a wide audience, while Coca-Cola gets original images of satisfied customers and potentially increases sales.

These five hashtag marketing techniques are shown to boost engagement by encouraging consumer conversations, making your content more searchable, expanding your reach, and more.

Implement them in your social media marketing strategy to see how effectively they work for you.

Keyhole is a real-time conversation tracker that provides keyword and hashtag analytics for Twitter and Instagram. Get started for free.

The Top 16 Facebook Analytics Tools for Marketers

September 9, 2019September 6, 2019 by Keyhole

Updated on September 2019: this new Facebook Analytics tool list covers now 16 tools

A range of Facebook analytics tools competes for the same market, forcing marketers and community managers to decide between similar products.

It’s difficult to avoid this decision — essentially every brand and business has target markets active on social media’s most popular network. Thankfully, diverse costs and capabilities can make it easier to choose.

Looking at prices and differentiating features, learn about the top 20 Facebook analytics tools:

Jump Links to the 16 Facebook Analytics Tools:

1. Keyhole
2. Brand24
3. Brandwatch
4. Buffer
5. Mention
6. Cyfe
7. Facebook Insights
8. Oktopost
9. Quintly
10. Rival IQ
11. SharedCount
12. Social Bakers
13. Sotrender
14. Sprout Social
15. Sumall
16. Unmetric

1. Keyhole

Sentiment-analysis-audemars-piguet-aug2019

Use Keyhole to get data and optimization strategies for any public Facebook page, whether it belongs to you or a competitor. Inputting the page’s name will reveal metrics surrounding fan growth, engagement by post type and best times to post based on engagement. A unique feature, the tool also calculates the ideal length of your updates by character count.

To better understand your own page or the competition’s strategies, you can export these data points — and more — in PDFs and Excel spreadsheets.

Give Facebook account tracking with Keyhole a shot here

Price: Starts at $179 USD per month

2. Brand24

Try Brand24 to track metrics surrounding conversations across Facebook. It gives a stream of your company’s mentions, but the tool’s analytical value lies in the measurement of these mentions. For example, it quantifies sentiment and the influence of individual users. It also has a discussion volume chart, illustrating spikes and drops in mentions. This helps you visualize the popularity of events and social campaigns.

Price: $49 – $399 USD per month

3. Brandwatch

Use Brandwatch to analyze a page’s fan base. Able to track data pertaining to any public page, the tool offers audience analytics such as gender, location, profession and interests. Along with mention volume and sentiment, the tool monitors what audience members are sharing to uncover popular topics. You can use this information to inform your Facebook content strategy, possibly giving you more ideas to post about.

Price: Contact Brandwatch to discuss a unique plan

4. Buffer

Try out Buffer if you need a scheduling tool with complementary analytics. It informs your Facebook strategy by offering basic post metrics, such as engagement, for updates you make through the tool. Based on this data, Buffer identifies your top post each day. To replicate its success, you can model future updates on its content type and posting time.

Price: From $50 USD per month

5. Mention

Sign up for Mention to access its library of historical data, which updates every minute. In a variety of charts and graphs, it illustrates page analytics such as sentiment, engagement and demographic information — ranging from age to ethnicity. Like some other tools on this list, you can access data for any public page.

Price: Free – $600+ USD per month

6. Cyfe

Consider Cyfe if you want a customizable analytics dashboard. Along with finance and general web metrics, you can add and remove more than 50 Facebook widgets from your dashboard. These widgets track page metrics, post stats and demographic data. For example, you can see how your fan base has grown and engaged with you, as well as information such as their interests.

Price: Free – $89+ USD per month

7. Facebook Insights

Facebook Insights - Top 20 Facebook Analytics Tools

Stick with Facebook Insights if you’re uncomfortable using or paying for a third-party tool. Available for each page you manage, it has basic — yet essential — metrics such as page likes and actions. Differentiating between paid and organic, you can get standard post data — reach, impressions and engagement. It also offers fan demographic information, including gender, location and language. Due to its range of metrics, some tools on this list integrate with Facebook Insights instead of offering unique data points.

Price: Free

8. Oktopost

Quantify the financial impact of your social media strategies using Oktopost. The tool tracks conversions while identifying channels and messages that drive financial actions on your website. For example, it allows you to confidently say “this new customer came from our latest Facebook post.” Oktopost also uses engagement data to pinpoint the best posting times, allowing you to publish through its dashboard.

Price: Contact Oktopost for custom pricing

9. quintly

Try out quintly to measure your pages against competitors. You can access Facebook Insights through the tool, which will allow you to start comparing and contrasting pages. It visualizes stats — such as engagement — from these accounts in single graphs. These sorts of features make quintly a go-to tool for competitive goal setting.

Price: Starts at $300 USD per month

10. Rival IQ

Use Rival IQ — another competitive benchmarking tool for Facebook — to track opposing brands and measure your performance against theirs. Prioritizing growth, the tool records how audiences change on weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual bases. By giving you access to historical data, you can correlate audience size fluctuations to major events and business cycles. This pinpoints when rival are expanding their fan bases.

Price: $199 – $499 USD per month

11. SharedCount

Take SharedCount’s name literally. Answering more than a billion requests per month, the website tracks the social like, share and comment counts of content pieces. To see these stats, simply paste a URL into the search bar.

Price: $40 – $640 USD per month

12. Socialbakers

Try Socialbakers if you need a comprehensive dataset above all else. The features include custom benchmarking and competitive analysis, allowing you to create groups to track your Facebook performance against. The tool also differentiates between paid and non-paid content when measuring post performance. And of interest to companies with a worldwide presence, Socialbakers can segment data by individual brand and country.

Price: from $200 USD per month

13. Sotrender

Collect metrics from any public page in a single dashboard with Sotrender, allowing you to measure your performance and research competitors. On top of audience demographic information, the tool offers data such as post reach and impressions. You can see how these metrics vary between update types, including ones that have photos, videos and just text. Using the numbers it tracks, Sotrender makes suggestions about when to post and which kinds of media to use.

Price: $50 – $390 USD per month

14. Sprout Social

Choose Sprout Social to monitor the numbers behind different Facebook pages in one dashboard. As well as an inbox that brings messages from all pages into a filterable stream, you can access data visualizations for post metrics such as impressions and engagements. The platform also tracks page data, including fan growth. You can export these analytics to PDFs and CSVs.

Price: Custom pricing for Analytics Suite

15. SumAll

Connect unlimited Facebook accounts to SumAll. This feature, along with reports to which you can add your logo, make it an ideal analytics tool for social marketing agencies. SumAll focuses on goal setting and completion, charting your progress with standard growth and engagement metrics. You can set the tool to send emails summarizing this data, helping you stay on top of different accounts you handle.

Price: Free

16. Unmetric

Use Unmetric to guide your growth strategy through its reporting and historical analysis features. Containing Facebook Insights data, it emails you Excel and PowerPoint reports depending on the frequency you set. The metrics can be up to four years old, helping you find out how well past strategies worked for you and your competitors. Unmetric also separates paid from organic numbers when analyzing posts for standard metrics such as engagement.

Price: Custom pricing

The Final Verdict About these Facebook Analytics Tools

Some platforms should appeal to you, but the choice ultimately depends on:

Getting features that help grow your Facebook footprint
Measuring the metrics you value
Staying within your budget
Receiving a positive user experience

Use this list of 16 Facebook analytics tools as your guide to, at the very least, simplify the research and decision processes.

Keyhole is a real-time conversation tracker that provides keyword and hashtag analytics for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Get started for free

Top 25 Social Media Analytics Tools: The Definitive Guide

October 23, 2019July 25, 2019 by Keyhole

[Updated in July 2019, for a brand new Social Media Analytics Tools comparison]

Did you miss our previous blog on the 27 Hashtag Analytics strategies? No worries, you can read it here: https://keyhole.co/blog/hashtag-analytics-27-actionable-strategies/

It can be a daunting task.

You’ve asked everyone and every query tool for the best social media analytics tools and you’re still unsure which to use. And you don’t have the time and money to waste using a tool only to find out later on that it doesn’t suit your needs. Whether you’re asking other marketers or searching on Google, it can be quite confusing — with every brand making enticing promises.

How do you know which of them would deliver on their promise? A good complete guide is a great place to look.

Here’s a guide showing you the top 25 social media analytics tools, and how they work:

Top 50 Digital Agencies in the UK

July 26, 2019May 1, 2019 by Keyhole

The United Kingdom is a hotbed for innovative and quality digital agencies. A digital agency is an advertising/marketing agency that understands the needs to market and promote through digital technology. Digital agencies focus on a broad range of services such as search engine optimization, social media marketing and online brand development. Digital marketing is the best way for a company to reach a specific audience and quality digital agencies help these companies to succeed with their specific goals. These are the top 50 digital agencies that the UK has to offer.

Top 50 Digital Agencies in the UK

April 30, 2019May 1, 2019 by Keyhole

Social Media Content Distribution Tactics that Work Like Magic

October 26, 2018August 30, 2018 by Keyhole

I’m sorry to say this, but you’ll never stand out like a digital peacock in the social media realm — that is, if you’re oblivious about how to distribute your content effectively.

If you’re into the whole publish and pray strategy — if you can even call it one — then your content will easily be drowned out by the millions of posts published on social media daily.

For you to succeed, you need to have a carefully crafted content distribution tactic when publishing your posts in social media.

Allow me to share with you four tactics that you can use for just that.

Let’s hop right in.

1. Build strategic partnerships with influencers.

I’m not really a huge proponent of the whole, “It’s not what you know, but WHO you know that counts” rationale. However, when it comes to marketing your content on the internet, I have to admit that it’s hard to ignore this reality.

Such is especially the case when you’re operating in the social media space where a single tweet or share from an influencer, can easily skyrocket your content views and even online sales.

That being said, it’s crucial that you pair your social content distribution endeavors with influencer marketing.

To find the right influencer, you can use Keyhole.co to gain a bit more insight into the influencer that you’re thinking of partnering with.

Here are some of the data points you can learn about an influencer if you run them through Keyhole.co:

Average likes
Average retweets
Average number of posts
Average engagements
Their top posts based on engagements

Here’s a glimpse of how Keyhole.co looks from the inside.

(An overview of the influencer.)

(The account statistics.)

(Top posts by engagement.)

These are just some of the many things you can learn about your prospective influencer.

When you have these details, you can judge better if the person is an ideal partner to help you distribute your content through their followers or not.

2. Leverage employee advocacy.

Before anything else, let’s define the phrase “employee advocacy.”

According to Smarp.com, it is “the promotion of a company’s messages by its employees.”

Based on the definition alone, I hope you can see how this can be important for your content distribution on social media.

Let’s face it: Your target audience might not support you immediately when you reach out to them. After all, they don’t know your company through and through so it’s quite normal for them to have doubts about you.

The same can’t be said when you ask your employees for support, however. In most cases, they will welcome the idea since they are proud to be a part of your company.

That’s why employee advocacy is crucial in your social media content distribution endeavors. You’ll barely need to convince any of your employees to help you with sharing or promoting your company’s message.

The good news is, there are online platforms that can help you streamline your employee advocacy efforts.

Smarp is one of them.

You just need to create an account, do your initial setups like creating your channels and adding people to it, and you’re pretty much set to start posting.

Here’s how the platform looks from the inside.

(When creating new channels.)

(When editing/tweaking your channels.)

(When adding subscribers or employees to your channel.)

(How you can add your posts.)

With the help of social advocacy platforms, it’ll be easier for you to manage your marketing efforts and even measure the results you get out of them.

3. Leverage social scheduling.

There are a plethora of benefits to be had from using social scheduling platforms when distributing your content via social media.

For one thing, it enables you to repost your content multiple times. Also, you can control when your posts are published.

Both aspects are crucial for succeeding in the social media space.

After all, your target audience is most likely flooded with truckloads of content every day, that’s why you need to repost your content multiple times.

Also, as you study your audience, you’ll realize that there are certain times in a day where they log in. As you uncover this information, you can use the social scheduling platform to schedule your posts at the most optimum time.

4. Find out where your audience is.

Before you even start distributing your social media content, you need to know where exactly to distribute them.

I mean, sure, you can certainly post all of your content in your social media pages. However, that alone won’t do you much good.

You need to go out there, look for your audience, and distribute your content in places or groups where they frequent on.

Remember, where your customers are, there you should also be. This is a timeless lesson that businesses or marketers should never forget.

To help you with finding your audience, one of the best tools you can use is Facebook Audience Insights.

From your Facebook’s personal profile, click “Ads Manager” > the burger menu on the top left part of the page > hover to “All Tools” > click “Audience Insights.”

You will then see this page.

After you enter your interest and hit “enter,” click the “Page Likes” tab. (For this example’s sake, I entered the keyword “pastry” in the “Interest” section.)

You will then be able to view the pages relevant to your niche (and their audience sizes) as you scroll down.

At this point, you now have access to the list of niche-relevant pages where your audience is most likely hanging out online.

The only thing left for you to do is engage, build relationships, and distribute your social media content in these pages.

It’s worth pointing out that Facebook Audience Insight has several more features that you can use to help you with your content distribution. Be sure to check out the tool and experiment with it.
What’s next?
You don’t need to have decades of experience to succeed in the social media space.

Just by following the tried and tested strategies that seasoned social media marketers are using, you’d be able to formulate your very own system of distributing your content effectively (and efficiently) via social media.

If you follow the tips that we covered — or build on them — you’ll be able to get better results out of the content you’ll publish in your social media accounts.

If you have questions and ideas that you’d like to share regarding content distribution in the social media space, feel free to add them in the comments section below. Cheers!

6 Critical Steps to Avoid a Social Media Crisis

October 26, 2018July 19, 2018 by Keyhole

Social media is an enormously powerful tool for managing customer relationships, broadcasting positive brand stories and introducing new products. But while the benefits of this free, fast and intuitive marketing channel are virtually limitless, it also has some potentially serious risks.

But there’s good news; with proper planning you can avoid the most common mistakes that lead to a social media crisis.

What Causes Social Media Crises?

Common Mistakes — Just about anything can spark social media outrage and bring out the trolls, but the most common slip-ups include:

Spelling and grammar mistakes made by professional organizations
Accidentally liking an inappropriate post
Tweeting a personal message from a professional account
Unintentionally making an offensive statement

Serious Problems — Employee sabotage and hacking are much more serious offenses. While businesses can, and do, shift responsibility for the malicious post, they’re often criticised for allowing their login credentials to be compromised.

Catastrophic Events — Intentionally racist, sexist, or malicious comments made by companies or individuals ignite the worst type of social media crisis. These statements can significantly impact a brand’s revenue and reputation, and recovery could take years.

Look no further than Roseanne Barr for a trending example of how powerful one tweet can be.

In the days following her comment, Barr’s television contract was canceled, her reputation was heavily damaged, and she lost an estimated $3 million in revenue.

So, how can you avoid a social media crisis? Here are 6 steps you can take.

1. Have a Crisis Communication Plan

The most important steps toward preventing a social media disaster are understanding what crisis management means for your business and creating an action plan to address your risk factors.

While you can’t predict every crisis, you can train your social media team to prepare for, and effectively manage, potential problems.

Since social media is your front line of communication during a crisis, your plan should include specific guidelines to protect your brand. Most importantly, always have a second set of eyes on every post before it’s published. Companies should also train more individuals in crisis communications and social media management than you think you’ll need.

2. Monitor your Social Media for Trouble!

Identifying problems as soon as they arise is critical to crisis prevention. Unfortunately, you may never know about the biggest issues facing your company because 96% of angry customers don’t complain to brands directly. Many of these upset customers prefer posting about their poor experience on their own timeline. These “dark” complaints could go unnoticed, causing negative impact, without proper tools and training.

Social listening tools allow you to monitor keywords and indirect brand mentions as well as direct mentions. This gives your company a much more holistic view of what your customers are saying across all social platforms.

Keyhole’s Intelligent Notifications feature is an excellent example of how brands can set up alerts to detect direct and indirect (‘dark’) posts with negative sentiment.

Keyhole AI detects any tracked posts with negative sentiment made about your brand, and you automatically receive an Intelligent notification in your inbox, which allows you to react to the post before the negative sentiment escalates.

For instance, United Airlines would have seen this tweet and its volume, the first mention of the United Flight 3411 incident, with Keyhole.

This would have given the airline an ample runway to handle the crisis before it escalated.

3. Always Engage with Your Audience

Social profiles are frequently viewed as sales tools instead of powerful customer service platforms for building brand loyalty and customer care. By solely pitching products rather than having meaningful conversations with your followers, you could miss opportunities to address customer experience problems early on.

According to Maritz Research, 49% of customers expect companies to respond to Twitter complaints, yet only 29% of those who complained received a reply.

Additionally, customers who complain expect a response within 4 hours, while the average brand response time exceeds 10 hours.

It’s crucial to respond quickly and professionally when negative comments about your company are discovered. Ignoring criticism, even when it isn’t posted directly to your page, sends a message to your followers that you don’t care enough about them to respond.

4. Respond to Criticism Professionally

Knowing how to properly handle criticism in a public forum is essential to protecting your reputation. A single rude response to a genuine complaint will do far more damage to your image than the original comment could.

Deleting comments and blocking users may seem like the quickest way to fix a problem, but doing so could cause your customer to become more outspoken. Instead, make an effort to understand what caused the situation and show a willingness to make things right.

Consumers typically complain on social media when their problem has not been properly resolved. You may be able to prevent your customers from complaining in public by providing a seamless resolution process on your website or over the phone.

Angry customers want to express their frustration quickly, so they usually avoid email. Adding a simple feedback button to your site may prevent them from firing off a raging tweet for all to see. Just make sure it’s easy to find and effortless to use. You could even offer visitors incentives for leaving feedback if it they’ve been poking around your site for a while.

5. Choose the Right Person to Manage Your Accounts

Assigning your brand’s social media strategy to an intern or an inexperienced employee may save you money, but it could also be a recipe for disaster.

A great social media manager has a level head, is capable of handling a crisis, and is well-organized and detail-oriented. Finding someone with public relations experience adds another layer of insurance against mistakes.

Prefer to outsource the work? There are many companies specializing in managing social media accounts for businesses. This option may be the most impactful if you have room in your budget.

6. Draft an Employee Social Media Policy

Most people might think their private social profiles are safe for ranting about work stress, but negative posts can have serious consequences if customers or coworkers see them. Distribute guidelines about how to reference your brand online, but don’t scare your team away from posting. Happy employees are some of the best recruiting tools you can ask for!

Closing thoughts

The benefits of using social media intelligently will always outweigh the risks. Remember to monitor for problems, listen to your followers, react quickly and compassionately, and plan ahead, that way you’ll be able to maximize the benefits of this channel while avoiding potential crises.

How the National Museum of African American History and Culture Transforms Conventional Narratives Through Social Media

October 26, 2018May 14, 2018 by Keyhole

Recruited before the museum even opened its doors, Lanae Spruce has become
The National Museum of African American History and Culture’s influential voice on social media.

As the Manager of Social Media and Digital Engagement, Lanae focuses on finding creative ways to take the rich stories that live within the museum walls and spread them far and wide online.

For the past four years, during a crucial time in US history, Lanae and her team have led transformational conversations about race and national identity on social media, subverting stereotypes and changing “minds & hearts”.

Social Justice Leads the Conversation

One of the unique things about monitoring social media through hashtag analytics in the long-term is that clear patterns begin to emerge.

“We use Keyhole to monitor our hashtag campaigns and engagement. We also use it to find and look at our influencers, reshare content and find new stories.”

Lanae’s team (pictured below), for instance, finds that leading the conversation on issues of social justice attracts their highly-engaged audience.

“Through our analytics, we’ve been able to determine that we have one of the highest engaged audiences on social media in the museum industry, and that’s informed our practice directly. We’ve found that commenting on issues related to social justice really resonates with our audience. Whenever we can offer historical context for any of these contemporary issues they love it. By being timely and also by standing up for what’s right we continue to engage our followers.”

For instance, on National Watermelon Day (August 3), the team found an opportunity to subvert a common stereotype.

“Watermelons are a stereotype associated with African Americans. What we were able to find through our research with historians here is that at one point in time, many African Americans owned watermelon farms. And it was seen as a symbol of empowerment because they were able to create their own wealth and lifestyles by buying and selling watermelons. So we were able to take a stereotype and flip it on its head.”

Tracking the Pulse

By listening to the goings-on of social media, Lanae’s team also keeps on top of fresh stories and adds their voice to relevant conversations as they emerge.

“I think for us we’re very in tune with the pulse side- what people are talking about right now, and how we can use that to create moments to educate the public”

For instance, Lanae shares that after the horrific events in Charlottesville last summer, her team thought a lot about the best way to respond on social media. Ultimately, they created a thread on Twitter that spoke about the history of terror for African Americans in the United States immediately following the civil war period, “during reconstruction”.

The impact?

“We got thousands and thousands of retweets, and Twitter created a stand-alone moment for that particular Twitter thread because it was so important and it led the conversation for what everyone was talking about at that time.”

Click this image to see the Twitter Moment

Of course, the NMAAHC is in a unique position to lend their voice to this conversation, both as an educational institution and as experts in African American history.

“I remember one of my peers asking me, how can a museum tweet using #BlackLivesMatter? The answer is: because we directly have collections and exhibitions and programming that support the issues there, and as long as we are able to offer context on these issues we are doing our job at the Smithsonian as an educational institution.”

The Power of a Post-It

The intention that Lanae came to this job with has continued to inspire an approach to social media that transcends common marketing objectives. Far beyond any metrics or KPIs, the NMAAHC is leading an important conversation online.

“I think for me one of the things that really drew me to the role is that my boss at the time posed a question to me that has stuck with me throughout this role (I still have the sticky note from our conversation!):

‘How do we honor African American experiences outside the common narrative?’

This question has since driven this team’s approach and guided how they choose to communicate online, the types of stories they highlight, and the content they create.

“I really thought about that: how can we create an impact and tell stories about LGBTQ African Americans, about the contributions of women and children during the struggle for African American civil rights?”

Key Take-Aways

The NMAAHC team has done extremely well through their social media channels, launching social campaigns like ‘Our Hidden Hurtstory’, daily ‘This Day in History’ content posts, and creating unique hashtags like #APeoplesJourney and #OurNationsStory that have, for instance, been used by 4 US presidents to date.

They are using social media differently, and in all their conversations they are reaching audiences with a message that is educational, progressive, and inclusive.

Using social media analytics, and specifically, hashtag analytics to monitor their conversations, they have created an approach that furthers their mission while also highly resonating with their audience.

We are thrilled that Keyhole is part of the mix that helps this museum regularly create significant conversations that move the needle.

How PROJECT 375 Uses Keyhole to Track the Conversation Around Mental Health

October 16, 2019May 1, 2018 by Keyhole

Erica Jellerson gives us her expert insight into how the conversation around mental health is changing on social media, and how she and her team are using social media analytics to lead the conversation.

PROJECT 375

PROJECT 375 is a non-profit organization centered around reducing the stigma around mental health.

The organization was born out of the experiences of its co-founders, NFL star Brandon Marshall and his wife– mental health advocate Michi Marshall.

In 2011, Brandon was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and spent 3 months in an intensive outpatient program at McLean Hospital.

After his experience, the critical need for stigma reduction and mental health education was immediately apparent. That’s why he, his wife, and the team are now dedicated to changing the conversation around mental health through PROJECT 375, which aims to “unlock human potential through conversation, education, and inspiration”.

The 375 Team at a Mental Health First Aid Training:

Mental Health on Social Media

Social media is one of the primary channels where the conversation around mental health is taking place, and, thanks to the public nature of social, it is also the one we have most visibility into.

According to Erica, who has been using Keyhole to monitor the conversation around mental health for years, we are currently experiencing a positive shift in its tone.

“I think we have been seeing a shift in the kinds of conversations surrounding mental health on social media. Just looking at the number of conversations taking place on these platforms, we can see it has grown instrumentally over the past couple of years. We are witnessing celebrities and everyday people alike, looking to social media to tell their stories.”

.@MensHealthMag, The Rock Just Opened Up About Mental Illness and Suicide: https://t.co/1KSJTilt1s
— PROJECT 375 (@PROJECT375) February 23, 2018

Naturally, social media is also one of the main ways that PROJECT 375 leads the conversation about mental health and connects with and understands its audience.

“We believe in meeting people where they are at. The fact is people are on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all day long! Our presence must be robust on these social channels to continue to galvanize the community and move these critical conversations forward.”

Self care is not selfish! #RT if you agree.
— PROJECT 375 (@PROJECT375) November 18, 2017

The organization uses its platforms to amplify news, celebrity posts, and studies that support its messaging and further a positive dialogue around mental health, using Keyhole to track, optimize and understand their own success.

Creating Success with Keyhole

“Keyhole is my go-to for all things analytics. Knowing our audience, their likes and dislikes, the kinds of content they prefer and the times they are looking at us is mission critical. I am constantly looking at the data to see what patterns emerge and the different ways we can tweak our strategies to best serve our supporters. Social media is ever-changing and Keyhole gives us the ability to change in lockstep with the latest trends and audience preferences.”

With Keyhole, Erica and her team are able to look at key social media account and hashtag analytics that give them insights into their audience and industry and help them amplify their message.

Knowing Your Audience: Likes, Dislikes & The Content They Prefer.

Knowing your audience is key.

In a non-profit space, this helps build ideal content to increase engagement and brand awareness. By targetting the right people by demographics or location, you can also improve your success with fundraising, petition signing, or event attendance.

Some of the Insights that PROJECT 375 uses Keyhole to measure are:

Follower Location (Worldwide & US-specific):

Keywords in Bio (to gauge personas, understand interests):

Top Engagement Times (to optimize content scheduling):

“Keyhole offers us information that we can’t get by attempting to just pull analytics from each channel. It is the most user-friendly, targeted program we have used. As our communications strategies have changed over time, Keyhole has allowed us to make the most informed decisions to achieve our goals.”

Keyhole helps PROJECT 375 understand the changing conversation around mental health, as well as their own content efforts. The Marshalls, Erica and their team are then able to use this data to further their mission, reducing the stigma around mental illness through awareness and community building.

Follow PROJECT375 on Twitter to continue listening.

If you are interested in tracking conversations on social media, try Keyhole for free!

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