Imagine for a moment you are a well-known blogger, brand or online business with thousands of site visitors and daily customers. Throw into the mix an online world where more than a billion active sites exist, and there are more than two-billion users across the major social networks. With so much content out there, how are you ever supposed to keep track of who is saying what about your personal name or brand, and also where?

In previous years, it may have been enough to simply ‘Google’ your name and set up an email notification like ‘Google Alerts’, however, that is no longer the case. The good news, is that along with the massive explosion of social media, blogging, and content on the internet, there have also been some huge advancements in online monitoring through both search engine content and social media as well.

One solution that is leading the way in this industry is SentiOne, which is currently trusted by more than 2,000 brands and in over 26 countries around the world. It’s easy to say a product or service has a lot of customers and users, but when you mention that big-name clients like Groupon, Huawei, Proctor and Gamble, and Gillette are using their platform, then you really start to think about how important monitoring online mentions really is.

Monitor Online Mention and Listen to What Matters Most

For most businesses and brands, monitoring online mentions is all about knowing when, where and what is being said about their own brands online. However, what SentiOne has realized over the years, is that online monitoring is so much more, and it’s actually about keeping an eye on your competition and any other keywords, names, products or phrases you would like to keep an eye on.

In the fast paced world of social media, delayed reporting is not something anyone can afford to have. When running social monitoring with SentiOne, everything is tracked and reported in real-time, which is crucial when responding to any potential complaints, support issues or even PR disasters. The platform is also able to deliver reports in 24 different languages, which is key since the online world isn’t spoken in just one language.

As you can imagine, when you start to look the astronomical figures that social media is constructed of, you need to have a powerful platform and system that can scan and track everything in real-time. SentiOne gives access to over 20 billion mentions in real-time — all of which are stored on the SentiOne servers, which means you can access your data and reports from anywhere at anytime.

How SentiOne Collect User and Brand Data Online

While social media is a complex beast in itself, when you start to throw in general content on the internet, it’s quite amazing to consider how everything can be crawled, monitored and filtered. This is exactly what SentiOne has created through their platform, which actively scans everything from forums to microblogs, Facebook to Google+, portals to Instagram. With so many elements and content sources in place, a ‘simple’ search would never get the job done, or provide the best data that individuals and brand marketers would be looking for.

The smart technology offered through SentiOne is able to determine the general sentiment of a mention — meaning it can tell whether the content is potentially positive, negative or neutral — all while also tracking these trends over time and looking for any repeating scenarios. All data and monitoring are done through the SentiOne dashboard area, which offers top domains/sites for mentions, user demographic data and more.

One set up with an account and logged into the platform, users can access full data sources, deeper analytics and even opinion leaders within any given niche market. This type of data and research is key for anyone looking to create expert roundup posts or build new partnerships with influencers and experts who already have established followings in their specific market.

How to Get Started with Monitoring Your Brand Mentions

The first step in the online monitoring process is to create an account with SentiOne. After you’ve created your account (which can be set up with a free 14-day trial), users will have the ability to create and run one test project. When setting up an account, users will also be asked to select their target audience (location), which currently consists of European regions like Estonia, Bulgaria, and Germany.

After selecting your countries of interest, it’s then time to create the first objective — which is to select whether monitoring will be done for a brand (your’s or a competitor), social media activity, content across the internet or other tracking options available through the solution.

No matter what is being searched for through the platform, trying to accomplish this in a manual process would simply be impossible. With the ability to scan through thousands of pieces of content in a matter of seconds, the platform is essentially doing the work for you through their ‘trends’ reporting.

Mentions can also be sorted and filtered based on when they were created, or the potential reach of each comment/mention. The option is also there to sort based on text or visual content, such as image or video. As mentioned earlier, demographic sorting is also available as well.

To experience the full tracking and benefits of the platform, it’s best to create an account and see the results for yourself.

Customer Management through Social Media

It’s one thing to monitor online mentions through social media, it’s another to be able to respond and track your progress. That is where SalesLift comes into play. This customer relationship management (CRM) solution makes it much easier for clients to build better relationships with new and existing audiences, while also working toward converting users into customers and valuable leads.

The benefits of such a CRM really comes into play when you think about engagement and mentions on social media in whole. For example, it’s quite easy to respond to someone if they contact your brand directly. However, what about when they simply make a statement about your brand but isn’t sent to you directly. That is where SalesLife again comes into play, giving brands or marketers the ability to jump into a conversation and take control — whether that be to simply reply, provide assistance or recommend a service/product.

Conversations and responses can also be tracked and archived in the platform as well. As you can imagine, the amount of engagement and conversations that could take place between brands and their audience could add up in size quickly. SentiOne has the platform, scalability, and technology to make sure all data is always accessible and safe.

SentiOne Costs and Price Plans

When it comes to pricing access to a platform like SentiOne, it’s important to make sure plans are available for bloggers, businesses, and brands of all sizes. That is exactly what you will find with the various SentiOne plans available.

The personal plan is focused on mostly monitoring, which comes with a price tag of 49 Euros per month. This package allows for the monitoring of unlimited keywords and mentioned, however, it is limited to just one user, one market and three projects in total. Historical data is also stored for only six months, which is less than the higher level price plans.

The team plan, which is best for businesses and agencies, comes at a rate of 149 Euros per month. This is the most popular price plan on the site, as it allows for up to 10 users, five projects and up to 12 months of data storage.

Enterprise plans are also available for businesses and brands that simply need to have ‘unlimited’ access and data to everything, while also having a full brand management platform in the process. To learn more about the Enterprise package, you will need to contact SentiOne directly.

All plans come with a 20% discount when billed annually, and as mentioned earlier, all new accounts come with a free 14-day trial.

Social media is one of the most important elements of your branding. Without social media, your company could go virtually unnoticed. There are also many different social media platforms to consider.

On top of that, there are about as many different devices that people are coming in on as there are people on the planet! Well, almost!

This is one of the most common concerns we experience when creating content and media for various sites. You have to know the exact specifications that they require. Otherwise, you will find yourself uploading, deleting, and starting all over again.

It’s also important to be on every social media outlet possible. This helps you create a sense of integration and saturation with your brand and gets you noticed on more channels. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and all of the rest all have very specific requirements when it comes to placing media on their platforms. It’s not enough to just have a great image. Though that is a good place to start.

So, when creating content for social media, one of the most important things to keep in mind is the specifications that each site requires.

We’ve made it easy for you in this guide to updated (2017) social media image specifications. We hope that you will benefit from having this as you work on creating your stellar content that will “wow” the world.

Add this infographic to your site:

<a href=”https://blogging.org/blog/social-media-image-sizes/”><img src=”https://blogging.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Social-Media-Image-Guide-Blogging-HD.png” sizes=”” alt=”Social Media Sizes” width=”944px” border=”0″ /></a>

Facebook

The cover photo for your Facebook image should be 828 x 315 pixels with a maximum file size of 100kb. The minimum size for Facebook cover photos is 399 x 150 pixels.

Your profile picture for Facebook should be 180 x 180 pixels. Your profile photo should be of good quality and should accurately represent your image, brand, or logo. This is because it will be seen numerous times on your posts, comments, and main page. Anytime you post anything on Facebook; your profile picture is what people will see.

While Facebook usually tweaks the images you share for best quality, you should also keep in mind that their specifications for a shared image are: 1200 x 630 pixels. Keeping this spec in mind will ensure that your post will look the best possible when you make updates on your business page.

Twitter

Your profile photo on Twitter should be 400 x 400 pixels. Your Twitter profile picture is your main picture that is visible to everyone whenever you do anything on Twitter. For a business, it is advisable to make this your logo. It should be of the highest quality possible while following the specifications of Twitter.

Your header photo on Twitter should be 1500 x 500 pixels with a maximum of 10mb in file size. This is the larger, oblong image that spreads across the top of your Twitter homepage. Much like a web page, your Twitter homepage is meant to give people a good first impression glimpse of what you are about as a brand or an individual. Make sure the image is of the best quality and that it follows the specs set aside by Twitter.

Also, Twitter allows you to post up to four pictures along with your tweets on their platform. You just have to maintain the 2:1 ratio for the images to fit their specifications.

Google Plus

The Google Plus format requires a profile image of 250 x 250 pixels. Like Twitter and Facebook’s profile image, this image will be seen across everything you do and post on the Google Plus network. So you should make it good. If you are doing it for your business, it is suggested that you use your trademarked logo or branding image so that people will associate your posts on the Google network with your brand.

The cover picture on Google Plus should be 1080 x 608 pixels. The cover picture is much larger, as you can see and the specs should be exact for optimal quality. Any shared images on Google should be 497 x 373 pixels.

Instagram

Instagram is best known for being the social media platform that focuses on pictures. Businesses and individuals alike can feature special photographs of their business or special events and draw attention to their brand by using Instagram. It is a popular social media outlet.

The specs for a profile picture on Instagram are 110 x 110 pixels.
The photo size for standard photos is 640 x 640. Photo thumbnails should be 161 x 161.
You should maintain an aspect ratio of 1:1 on Instagram so think “perfect square” when posting on this medium.

Instagram focuses more on images than text so keep this in mind when planning to post on Instagram. Make your pictures the best quality possible then cut them and resize to meet their specifications.

Pinterest

Your profile picture on Pinterest should be 165 x 165. Viewers of Pinterest don’t go to Pinterest to see your profile picture, but you should still have one if they visit your page. You might be reminded of the importance of a profile image on Pinterest when you get a new follower on Pinterest, and you click on their image to see their profile.

The most prominent images on Pinterest, however, are the pictures users post. Board images are the rule at Pinterest. These should be of high quality so that people will enjoy them more. The types of viewers that visit Pinterest are often hobbyists of different kinds, people planning weddings, birdwatchers, and other special groups looking for great ideas. People go to Pinterest to get inspired, so you need a high-quality board image. They are small, but the quality should still be great.

Create your board image at 222 x 160 to meet Pinterest’s specific standards. You should also make your pin sizes a width of 236 with a scaled height.

You can expand your pin to be larger, but it should have a minimum width of 600 pixels.

Tumblr

On Tumblr, you should make your profile image 128 x 128. A square profile pictures that represent your brand should suffice. Viewers will see it when they land on your profile page. Image posts on Tumblr should be at 570 x 750 pixels. Images may be as large as 10mb in file size, but animations can only be one MB.

YouTube

Your YouTube presence is very important in the social media world. YouTube is both a social media and video platform, as well as a search engine. For this reason, your YouTube images should be spot on. Your channel cover image for YouTube should be 2560 x 1440 pixels for desktop users, 1855 x 423 for tablets, 1546 x 423 for smartphones, and 2500 x 1440 for TV.

With YouTube’s capabilities of showing on multiple TVs and other devices nowadays, it’s even more important that you keep in mind the TV specs when people access your content through this medium.

For video, you should make your resolution 1280 x 760 pixels for best quality. YouTube states that they will tweak your videos to fit their platform and optimize it in the best format possible. However, you should still try to follow their specs to the best of your ability before uploading.

Linked In

Your standard logo image for LinkedIn should be 100 x 60 pixels. Your cover picture should be 974 x 300 pixels. Your banner image should be 646 x 220 pixels.

This is a professional career-oriented platform, though businesses do list their services on this platform as well. On LinkedIn, you should make you profile as professional-looking as possible to appeal to the professional community that LinkedIn is intended for. The content of the images should also strive to fit their more serious, professional tone.

Pulling it All Together

To pull off a successful social media campaign for your business or organization, it is important that you keep this guide handy to be sure you’re following the specifications. Each platform is different, and each one offers something unique. Their platforms all feature a special look and sizing requirements. This is because no two social media platforms are the same and each platform has recommended the size requirements that they feel will best optimize your brand or cause.

By following these guidelines at the front end, you can keep in mind the specific requirements as you work on and grow your content, to avoid frustration later when uploading your content to the various platforms.

Knowing the exact specifications from the experts on the various social media sites will save you a lot of headaches later when you are working on that great content that you wish to share on the various platforms.

We hope you will benefit from this handy guide and refer to it often to make sure your images and videos are up-to-par with the requirements.

Always start with a great image or video before you post, then trim it down to meet the specifications of the various platforms, according to the specs we’ve included in this article. This will ensure it is always optimized to the best quality.

Having your media on the major platforms is the single most important factor in promoting your brand and getting your message out to the masses.

Webinars are amazing. They’re taking all the power of a real, live seminar, and putting it into a package that practically anyone can organize and market without having to worry about insane costs or marketing material. You don’t have to travel, you don’t have to rent a venue, you don’t have to worry (as much) about production values – all you need is a following large enough to warrant a video conference, and in due time, your first webinar will open up the way to dozens more.

You’re not alone in that level of success. Although webinars are still under in-person events, blogs and the infinitely-proven earned media success of SEO and social media, 60 percent of business-to-business marketers use webinars and webcasts to market their content to clients, according to the Content Marketing Institute.

Contrary to what you may be thinking, webinars aren’t difficult. They don’t have to be scary. And as long as you follow a few guidelines, you’ll have people coming back for more – guaranteed.

Get Your Requirements Together

To begin, you’ll need three things – a video tool, an audience, and a producer. Webinar producers or moderators aren’t necessary, but they help smooth the production and transition of your brand into the webinar world.

Professional producers can help you translate your content into the sort of interactive video format that you need to keep an audience engaged for every second of the webinar, no matter what you’re talking about. They’ll also help you manage the marketing for your webinar, making sure you get your message out to your audience and get them assembled in time for your upcoming event. Marketing your webinar heavily helps – according to ReadyTalk, roughly 40 percent of contacted leads turn into webinar attendees.

If you’re wondering how to broadcast live video, any competent video tool will do – as long as it’s from a highly professional service, such as Blue Jeans. Premiere services differentiate themselves by providing better service, more useful features, higher levels of security and more functionality for both you and your audience. Premiere services also let you make joining your webinar as easy as clicking on an emailed link on any video-capable device, rather than requiring a software download.

Focus on a Specific Goal

This is slightly easier. No matter what you’re marketing or discussing, you’re bound to be an expert on many things – but cramming all of them into a single line of discussion is counterintuitive. People can only learn so much at once before they shut down – and that’s not something you want.

Set a goal and an agenda for yourself – what do you plan to achieve, and how do you want to achieve it? And finally, set a time.

Try to Deliver More than a Lecture

A Q&A session is a good way to end a webinar – but there can be more to the client-marketer communication there. You could, as an example, demonstrate concepts by asking members in the audience to perform an example.

If you’re holding a seminar on selling more effectively through video technology, you can have an audience member in the webinar show through their camera how your lessons on pitch, tone and body language really work to achieve the kind of trust between a client and salesperson that you’re aiming for.

You Don’t Have to Work Alone

If your webinar focuses on a topic that touches on something more specific in an area you’re not fully comfortable with – say, for example, the efficacy of a certain car’s new hybrid motor while you’re in the position of the car enthusiast – you can invite an expert on engines and sustainable technology to speak briefly or send in a playable sound bite on the matter.

Put the Stage in Your Mind

While you’re not going to be on any kind of actual stage during a webinar, it’s really essential to make sure that you’re doing a good job of being a professional presenter. That means a few things: first, lighting. Keep the lighting behind the camera, to avoid taping any shadows and to make sure you’re getting the best possible lighting quality.

If you want to use natural light, simply work with your computer facing away from a southern-facing window – or an east/west-facing window if you’re hosting your webinar in the afternoon/early morning, depending on where you are.

Body language is important as well. Lean forward, but not so much to be intimidating, and keep your eyes close to the camera – an easy way would be to put your camera and camera output close to each other, so you can keep an eye on how you look without being obvious about it. Do a mic-test and buy a pop filter, and go through a number of words to get a feel for how you’ll sound, as well.

Finally, the last tip is that your work will never be over. That’s not meant to be discouraging – rather, it’s a good thing. Webinars have to be expanded upon, and with the right relationship, you can turn them into a powerful tool for yourself.

When it comes to Facebook advertising you have a lot of options. You can create a Facebook Fan Page, send out social updates, promote theses updates through paid advertising, create a viral social contest or even setup your own advertising campaigns through their self serve advertising platform.

No matter what method you are using, Facebook has a great platform in place that can fit the needs of any individual, brand, business or blogger. You can also start a blog around your Facebook contest and campaign as well.

In the infographic below (provided by SocialMetric) we are going to walk through the process of finding what the best method is for targeting with your demographic audience, while also looking at how you want them to engage with your site, content or products.

With so many different advertising options available through Facebook, the most important thing for you to start with is asking why you are advertising in the first place and what type of results you want to see (more sales, traffic or engagement).

What do you want your audience to do? I want my audience to become…

• more aware of my brand
• more educated about my products/services
• more leads, sign ups and sales

Depending on your answer, there is a “best” method for you to use through Facebook’s platform.

For example, if you wanted to drive “more leads, sign up and sales”, you would want to setup a Facebook Ads campaign that would allow you to target your exact target audience through demographics (age, location, gender, interests etc). You could then upload your own banners or ad copy and send visitors right to your site where they can fill out a lead gen form or purchase a product.

Other examples of advertising include growing your brand (through Fan pages) and awareness (through promoted posts). Many brands are focused on building their Facebook following by growing likes and fans, but we are continually seeing these pages become less effective as Facebook continue to limit how many fans will see your actual updates (while requiring brands to spend more money to get a high percentage of reach.

Before starting your next Facebook ads campaign, be sure to check out the infographic below and see which advertising method is best for your audience targeting goals.