While it’s true that careless posts about work can harm your professional reputation, it’s crucial to exercise caution when expressing opinions or complaints online.

On the flip side, Facebook can be a valuable tool for career growth if you use it to build meaningful connections with colleagues and clients. The effectiveness of this strategy will vary depending on your workplace culture and other factors, but some general guidelines apply universally.

Below are some tips on how to use Facebook effectively to gain the respect of your peers and superiors, and potentially improve your job standing.

Connecting with Work Colleagues on Facebook

Many people hesitate to add their bosses, coworkers, or clients on Facebook. The concern is usually about maintaining privacy and the freedom to post without work-related scrutiny. However, there are pros and cons to this approach.

Facebook can be a tool for career growth if used wisely. By connecting with people from work, you can share posts that may positively influence your career. But be cautious – posting content that offends your work connections could harm your professional standing. The key is to be thoughtful about what you share, and we’ll discuss how to do that in upcoming tips.

Initial connections with work contacts are crucial, but you don’t have to sacrifice your privacy. Facebook now offers advanced privacy settings (Improved Friend Lists) that allow you to control who sees your posts.

Improve Your Work-Life Balance on Social Media

While it’s tempting to only share work-related posts to impress your colleagues, it’s not the best approach. Overdoing it can make you seem insincere or too focused on your job. Instead, let your personality shine through by sharing aspects of your personal life as well.

Connecting on a personal level is crucial. Share photos or posts that show you have interests outside of work. This personal touch could even improve your chances of getting a promotion.

Many people think work and personal life should be separate, but your personality should be consistent in both. This consistency builds trust with those around you.

Related: How to Achieve Work-Life Balance

Unlock Networking Opportunities

Facebook is an excellent platform for expanding your professional network. You may not know colleagues from other departments well, but connecting on Facebook can deepen those relationships. You can chat, share posts, and discover common interests.

What’s the benefit? Firstly, it enhances your social life at work, providing a support system for tough times. These friends understand your work environment because they’re part of it too.

Secondly, a strong network can advance your career. Being well-connected within your organization increases your visibility. If you’re friends with someone in each department, you’re more likely to be recommended for new opportunities.

Lastly, a broad network can make your job easier, especially when you need favors from other departments.

Staying Updated with Your Network

One of the benefits of using Facebook for networking is that it keeps you updated about your friends, colleagues, and clients. Whenever you log in, you can see their latest status updates or photos, helping you stay in the loop about their lives.

Getting real-time updates allows you to understand what’s currently important to your professional contacts. Sometimes, they might not directly communicate these things to you. Being informed gives you the chance to engage with their posts and make a positive impression.

This feature also helps you initiate conversations and maintain ongoing relationships with your network.

For example, if a client posts about needing a particular service, you can offer your expertise or recommend someone who can help. This not only strengthens trust but also positions you as a go-to person for future consultations. You can even add potential clients to your network and engage with them when they show interest in your services.

Highlighting Your Skills and Knowledge

Facebook is a great platform for showcasing your skills and insights, especially if you’ve connected with work-related contacts. It’s an easy way to share your thoughts and establish yourself as a knowledgeable professional in your field.

However, be mindful of the difference between showcasing your skills and showing off. The key is moderation. Share your professional opinions occasionally, but don’t make it the sole focus of your posts.

Always maintain humility and openness. Aim for neutral posts and be receptive to any comments or feedback you may receive.

The post How to Leverage Facebook for Career Advancement appeared first on Hongkiat.

When you approach influencers, it’s essential to be genuine and specific about why you want to collaborate with them. This means understanding their passions, style, and what they stand for. In return, you should offer them something valuable, whether it’s payment or a chance for more exposure.

It’s a bad idea to connect with influencers just for self-gain without offering them something in return. This can backfire, harming both your reputation and the influencer’s trust. It’s better to aim for real, mutual connections that benefit both sides.

The Importance of Influencer Outreach in Marketing

Influencer outreach is a key part of influencer marketing. It’s about connecting with influencers – individuals with a large online following – to promote a brand on social media. By partnering with influencers, brands can share their products or services with a wider audience, using the trust and popularity of the influencer.

Why is this important? For starters, influencers can introduce brands to specific audiences that might be hard to reach with regular ads. Also, since many people trust influencers’ opinions, their endorsement can mean a lot.

To work well with influencers, brands need to be thoughtful. It’s not just about paying them; sometimes, it’s about giving them special content or experiences. The goal is to build a real, trusting relationship.

In the modern digital world, using influencers has become a must-have strategy. They don’t just introduce new people to a brand; they can also make a brand seem more trustworthy. This can lead to loyal customers and repeat sales.

But remember, there’s a right way to do influencer outreach. Brands should research, approach with a personal touch, and always offer something valuable in return. This ensures a win-win relationship for both the brand and the influencer.

Dos of Influencer Outreach

1. Research Before Contacting: Understand the influencer’s brand and audience to ensure a good fit with your goals.
2. Personalize Your Message: Address the influencer by name and reference their work to show genuine interest.
3. Be Clear and Concise: Explain clearly why the influencer should work with you and highlight the mutual benefits.
4. Provide Value: Offer exclusive products, event invites, or unique collaboration opportunities.
5. Follow Up Tactfully: If there’s no response, gently remind them but avoid being aggressive.
6. Stay Flexible: Be open to negotiations to find a mutually beneficial arrangement.
7. Respect Their Creativity: Let influencers have a say in the content creation process.
8. Promote Collaborations: Share the work widely, always crediting and thanking the influencer.
9. Communicate Openly: Address concerns promptly and maintain a two-way dialogue.
10. Foster Ongoing Relationships: Stay engaged with influencers, showing appreciation even after campaigns conclude.

See "Dos of Influencer Outreach" in infographic.

Approaching Influencers: Best Practices

Reaching out to influencers effectively involves certain key steps. Start by researching to ensure the influencer aligns with your brand’s values and audience. This involves examining their content, how engaged their followers are, and who their audience is.

When you’re ready to make contact, be personal and authentic. Generic or spam-like messages won’t do. Instead, send a tailored message, showcasing your awareness of their work and how it might align with your brand.

Lastly, always be considerate of the influencer’s time and boundaries. Never assume they’ll work for free or endorse something they aren’t comfortable with. Aim to nurture a lasting relationship built on trust and mutual respect. By keeping these guidelines in mind, your outreach to influencers will be more fruitful now and in times to come.

1. Set Goals

be raising brand profile, increasing sales, or more engagement online. Set clear, practical targets (like those that are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound). When discussing with influencers, be open about these goals. This clarity not only respects their effort but ensures both sides gain from the partnership.

2. Tailor Your Outreach

It’s essential to approach influencers in a way that shows you understand them. Dive into their work, grasp what they stand for, and then contact them with a message that reflects this understanding. Avoid generic messages; they often feel insincere.

Mention what you genuinely appreciate about their work. And remember, it’s a partnership. Offer something valuable in return – maybe early access to a product, payment, or just genuine appreciation.

3. Foster Relationships

Working with influencers isn’t just a one-off deal. It’s about creating lasting connections. Engage with their content, show support on their platforms, and let them see you value the ongoing relationship, not just a single collaboration.

4. Research Effectively

Before contacting any influencer, understand their sphere of influence and passions. Make sure they match your brand’s essence and mission. This ensures you present them with opportunities that truly appeal to them.

5. Choose Ideal Influencers

Choosing the best influencers for your brand is key. Remember, not every influencer is right for you. To make sure your efforts pay off, pick those who best fit your brand’s identity.

Start by looking at an influencer’s specialty. Aim for those who are popular in areas related to what you do, as their followers are more likely to be interested in your products. Also, check their engagement and follower details to see if they match your ideal audience.

It’s also important to choose genuine influencers who seem trustworthy. This way, when they talk about your brand, their followers will be more inclined to listen.

6. Value the Influencer

When reaching out to influencers, make your offer stand out. They get lots of promotional requests, so offering them something special can catch their attention.

You can let them try your product before anyone else or send them free samples to review. Another idea is to give them great content, like photos or articles, that they can share with their followers.

7. Clarify Expectations

When you work with an influencer, make sure both of you understand what’s expected. This includes things like how many posts they’ll make and if/how they’ll be paid.

8. Professional Follow-Up

If an influencer doesn’t get back to you right away, don’t give up. Give it a week, then send another friendly message reminding them of your offer.

See "Best Practices for Approaching Influencers" in infographic.

Building Influencer Relationships

Building a bond with an influencer takes time. For a lasting partnership, it’s essential to remember that influencers have lives beyond social media. Try to connect with them personally, not just as a brand.

When you reach out, avoid using generic messages. Address them directly, mention specific posts you liked, and explain how partnering can benefit both of you.

Keep in touch even after working together. Engage with their content, celebrate their milestones, and support them when you can. This fosters trust and opens doors for more collaborations in the future.

Brands Excelling with Best Practices

Several brands are mastering influencer collaborations, forming strong bonds with influencers and seeing fantastic results. For instance, the beauty brand Glossier stands out for its genuine and inclusive image. They consistently work with influencers who mirror their core beliefs, producing content that truly connects with their followers.

Nike is another standout, using influencer connections to boost engagement and sales. By teaming up with renowned athletes like Serena Williams and LeBron James, they’ve managed to remain a favorite among younger consumers.

ASOS, a fashion retailer, taps into the power of micro-influencers, those with fewer followers but strong engagement. These collaborations allow ASOS to reach specific fashion groups and generate excitement for new items. Their success comes from forming lasting bonds with influencers who truly represent their brand, ensuring content that’s both real and impactful.

Influencer Outreach Pitfalls

When connecting with influencers, brands often make some common mistakes. Here are some key tips to make your outreach more effective:

1. Be Personal: Avoid generic emails. Tailor your message to each influencer.
2. Research First: Know the influencer’s background and previous collaborations before reaching out.
3. Have a Clear Goal: Know exactly what you want from the influencer.
4. Offer Fair Compensation: Don’t lowball; respect the influencer’s worth.
5. Value Their Past Work: Be aware of their previous partnerships, including with competitors.
6. Give Creative Freedom: Don’t micromanage their content creation.
7. Be Polite, Not Pushy: Follow up, but don’t be aggressive.



8. Show Appreciation: Always thank them, even if you don’t end up collaborating.
9. Know Their Audience: Don’t assume. Research the influencer’s followers.
10. Avoid Mass Emails: They feel impersonal.
11. Don’t Oversell: Be genuine, not too promotional.
12. Respect Their Preferences: Every influencer is unique.
13. Stay Connected: If they don’t respond initially, try again later.
14. Build Long-term Relationships: Don’t treat influencers as a one-off. Value long-term connections.

See "Influencer Outreach Pitfalls" in infographic.

Common Influencer Outreach Mistakes

A common error when reaching out to influencers is sending a generic message. Since influencers get numerous requests daily, it’s crucial to personalize your approach. Address them by name and show you’re familiar with their work.

Also, don’t just focus on what benefits you. Build a two-way relationship where both you and the influencer gain something. Think about how you can add value to them and their followers, like by collaborating on content or offering exclusive deals.

Lastly, if you don’t get a response, follow up. Instead of thinking they’re not interested, a gentle reminder might be the nudge they need. It shows you’re genuinely interested and reinforces why a partnership would benefit both parties.

Avoiding Outreach Mistakes

1. Be Tactful: Avoid being overly aggressive or pushy when reaching out to influencers; it can deter them from wanting to collaborate.

2. Personalize Your Messages: Sending generic, copy-pasted emails to various influencers isn’t recommended. Make each interaction genuine and tailored.

3. Respect Their Boundaries: Always honor an influencer’s comfort level and availability. If they’re uninterested or busy, don’t force a collaboration.

By adhering to these guidelines, you can foster positive and mutually beneficial relationships with influencers.

Choosing the Right Influencers

For effective influencer marketing, it’s essential to partner with the right people. Here are some tips to help you find and connect with the best influencers for your brand:

1. Know Your Audience: Start by understanding who you want to target. This will guide you towards influencers who have a relevant audience.

2. Quality Over Quantity: A large follower count is good, but engagement and reputation are even more important. Focus on content quality and how active their followers are.

3. Leverage Tools: Use tools like Buzzsumo, Hootsuite Insights, and Followerwonk to identify potential influencers in your domain.



4. Reach Out with Care: Personalized messages work best when contacting influencers. Make your outreach genuine and avoid sounding like spam.

5. Foster Strong Bonds: Aim to establish a lasting relationship with influencers. Support their content and engage with them consistently for better results in future campaigns.

Picking the right influencer may require patience and diligence, but the rewards for your brand can be significant when done right!

See "Choosing the Right Influencers" in infographic.

How to Assess Influencers

When diving into influencer marketing, it’s crucial to thoroughly review potential influencers. Start by examining their previous campaigns and collaborations. Key indicators like engagement, reach, and conversion rates will hint at their promotional effectiveness.

Also, scrutinize the demographics of the influencer’s audience. Before initiating contact, ensure their followers match your target audience. Investigate their follower growth patterns too; sudden increases might suggest fake followers.

Lastly, inspect the quality of the influencer’s content and see if their messaging resonates with your brand’s ethos. High-caliber content and aligned brand values ensure a genuine and successful collaboration.

Approaching Identified Influencers

Once you’ve pinpointed the top influencers in your field, it’s vital to connect with them the right way. Start by crafting a personalized message; avoid one-size-fits-all emails. Do your homework on each influencer, making your message relevant to them.

Offer them something meaningful, be it an exclusive product or a unique experience. It’s important for them to see the mutual benefit—a win for them and their followers. Be upfront about what you’re seeking, whether it’s a sponsored article or just a mention on social media.

Always respect their time. Don’t overwhelm them with messages and don’t expect instant replies. Building trust takes time, so be persistent but not pushy. By reaching out with sincerity and respect, you pave the way for valuable and lasting collaborations.

Influencer Relationship Building

To effectively connect with influencers, there are specific steps and pitfalls to be aware of. Start by researching to ensure you’re contacting those who truly resonate with your brand. It’s essential not to reach out haphazardly to every influencer in your field.

When you’ve pinpointed the right influencers, approach them with a personalized touch. Avoid generic messages or bulk emails. Instead, tailor your communication to show genuine interest.

It’s also vital to offer something of value when reaching out. Rather than only asking for their help, think about what you can give back, such as social media exposure or a mutually beneficial collaboration. This approach will improve your chances of forging strong, lasting ties with influencers, paving the way for your brand’s growth.

Building Long-Term Relationships with Influencers

To form enduring relationships with influencers, a few essential strategies stand out. Begin by thoroughly researching influencers to ensure they resonate with your brand’s principles and purpose.

Once you’ve pinpointed suitable influencers, craft a personalized outreach highlighting why they’d be an asset to your brand. Always propose a valuable exchange for their collaboration, like product samples or fair payment for sponsored content.

Consistent communication and feedback are crucial. Regularly engage with your influencer partners, offering feedback and exploring potential collaboration on new endeavors. By truly appreciating their work and seeing them as partners, not just brand ambassadors, you’re laying the foundation for a lasting relationship.

Here are some tactics to effectively connect with influencers for the long term:

1. Offer Support

Building relationships with influencers takes dedication. Once you connect with them, it’s vital to show ongoing support. Engage with their social media content, comment on their posts, and share their work with your audience. Be prompt in replying when they contact you, whether it’s about your product or feedback on their posts. Giving influencers exclusive opportunities or early access can further strengthen the bond. Mutual effort leads to lasting partnerships.

2. Host Influencer Events

Hosting events is a great way to connect with influencers. Whether it’s a product unveiling or an industry meet-up, personal invitations make influencers feel valued. Once invited, follow up to confirm their presence, and provide event details like date, venue, and schedule.

Offering them special privileges or VIP access can make them feel appreciated. But remember, it’s not just about the event itself. Engage with them before and after, share event highlights, and express gratitude for their participation. This nurtures the relationship and can be beneficial for both.

3. Content Collaboration

A great strategy to connect with influencers is to co-create content. This not only fosters a relationship but also results in quality content that appeals to viewers. When reaching out, it’s important to be respectful and professional.

Your outreach email should be tailored to the influencer, showcasing the benefits of collaboration for both audiences. A successful partnership satisfies both parties’ objectives, creating a beneficial situation for everyone.

However, avoid generic outreach or mass-emailing multiple influencers without tailoring your message. Influencers, like everyone, appreciate genuine respect for their time and skills. When you approach them authentically and value their work, you can build strong bonds and produce compelling content for your followers.

Managing Influencer Relations

Building and sustaining connections with influencers is key for successful influencer marketing. Regularly communicating with them, through emails, social platforms, or calls, helps keep the bond alive. Knowing about their personal and professional events and supporting them when necessary is pivotal.

Offering influencers exclusive experiences that match their brand’s essence is another tactic. This could be event invitations, early access to new products, or brainstorming content ideas together. Such exclusives show influencers their importance in the partnership.

Appreciating influencers by promoting them or mentioning them online can solidify the bond. These gestures make the relationship with brands stronger, ensuring a lasting and fruitful partnership.

Evaluating Influencer Success

To gauge the effectiveness of influencer partnerships, one can look at engagement statistics such as likes, comments, or shares on collaborated content. This data reveals if teaming up with influencers boosts brand visibility and engagement.

Sales conversions are another critical indicator. If a promoted product sees a sales surge due to an influencer, it’s a sign of a positive outcome. However, direct sales shouldn’t be the sole success criterion, as not every influencer tie-up will lead to immediate sales.

Considering the long-run, it’s crucial to ask: Are we forming durable bonds with influencers who resonate with our brand? Do they advocate for our brand even post-partnership? Such reflections show if the influencer relationship is not only successful but also impactful beyond mere short-term figures.

Influencer Pay & Disclosure

For brands, determining how to fairly compensate influencers and properly disclose partnerships can be challenging. It’s crucial for companies to openly reveal any payments or rewards given to influencers for endorsements. This means marking any paid content or collaborations so audiences can easily identify them.

Brands should also ensure they pay influencers based on accepted industry norms. Overcompensating not only strains a company’s finances but can also reduce the genuine feel of the influencer’s content. Both parties should be aware of their value and agree on fair payment.

In the end, honest dialogue and openness are essential in influencer collaborations. By adhering to industry guidelines, being clear about affiliations, and negotiating equitably, brands and influencers can form enduring, trust-filled partnerships.

Paying Influencers

Brands have different ways to reward influencers. They can give a set amount based on the influencer’s audience size and the work needed. They might also share a portion of the sales that come from the influencer’s promotions. It’s crucial for brands to be open about how they’ll pay and what they expect in return.

Sometimes, brands may pay with products instead of cash. This is especially appealing if the product matches the influencer’s style and audience. Besides products, brands might also offer special experiences, like invites to events or sneak peeks at new products. These perks not only compensate influencers but also give them exciting content to share.

Consider the following when deciding how to pay influencers:

1. Setting Your Budget

When planning to work with influencers, it’s crucial to set a budget. This will shape your expectations and help you target the right influencers for your brand. Think about the campaign you’re planning and the audience size you want to reach.

Many companies don’t budget enough for influencers. While some influencers might collaborate for free products, others might charge high fees. It’s important to research and compare prices to ensure you can afford the influencer you want.

Remember, there’s more to budget for than just the influencer’s fee. You might have additional costs like shipping products or creating tailored content for the campaign. Plan carefully to ensure you set a realistic budget for a successful influencer partnership.

2. Picking Compensation

There are several ways to compensate influencers, and what you choose will depend on your budget and campaign goals. Common options include cash payment, giving free products or services, setting up affiliate marketing programs, or offering unique experiences.

Paying influencers in cash is straightforward: you can offer a set amount or base it on results like the number of clicks. Offering free products or services can appeal to influencers who love your brand. Affiliate programs let influencers earn from sales they help generate.

You can also offer special experiences, like VIP event passes or brand partnerships, which can benefit both you and the influencer. No matter what you choose, make sure it’s fair and aligns with what you hope to achieve with the campaign.

3. Transparency in Pay

When reaching out to an influencer, it’s vital to be open about how much you’ll pay or the incentives they’ll receive. This clarity ensures both you and the influencer have the same expectations, building trust and avoiding future conflicts.

It’s also crucial to tailor your outreach to each influencer. Get familiar with their content and audience, making your pitch more personalized. This demonstrates that you respect and value their unique perspective.

What Not to Do:

Avoid offering insufficient pay. Recognize that influencers invest significant time and effort into their content.

Also, try not to be too forceful in your outreach. Given that influencers get numerous offers, being overly aggressive can be off-putting. Aim for a genuine connection built on mutual respect and interests.

Ensuring Disclosure

Transparency is key in influencer marketing. It’s vital that your followers know if you have a paid or sponsored relationship with influencers, as it affects their trust in you and the people you collaborate with. Here’s how to keep things transparent:

First, always label sponsored content clearly. This can be as simple as adding hashtags like #ad or #sponsored to your social media posts to indicate that the content is a paid partnership.

Next, make sure the influencer actually cares about what they’re promoting. A paid post with no genuine interest can feel fake to both the influencer’s audience and yours.

Finally, be aware of legal requirements. In the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) mandates that influencers disclose paid promotions.

By being transparent and honest, you can maintain strong, trustworthy relationships with influencers and your audience alike.

FTC Guideline Adherence

Sticking to the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) rules is essential when working with influencers. These rules aim to keep advertising honest by requiring influencers to clearly state when they’re being paid to promote something. Ignoring these rules can lead to fines and harm both the brand’s and the influencer’s reputation.

To stay on the right side of the law, brands should be upfront with influencers about how to properly disclose paid promotions. This means using clear labels like “ad,” “sponsored,” or “paid partnership” in posts. Brands should also guide influencers on where to place these disclosures in their content.

Brands need to regularly check that influencers are following these rules. Any mistakes should be corrected right away, either by taking down the post or adding the required disclosures. By sticking to these guidelines, brands can build consumer trust and keep a good relationship with influencers, all while avoiding legal trouble.

Marking Sponsored Posts

It’s crucial in influencer marketing to clearly indicate which posts are sponsored. This can be done by using hashtags like #ad or #sponsored, or by including a disclosure statement within the post or caption.

This practice is not just legally required in many places, but it also helps to build trust with your audience. When followers know a post is sponsored, they’re less likely to feel deceived, which helps maintain the credibility of both the influencer and the brand.

Being transparent about sponsorships, while still delivering quality content, can actually boost an influencer’s credibility. It shows they can seamlessly incorporate brand messages into their regular posts.

Influencer Disclosure Tips

Influencer marketing is a popular way for brands to advertise their products. But to make sure it’s fair and transparent, both influencers and brands need to follow rules set by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). These rules are meant to make it clear when influencers are getting paid or free stuff to talk about a product.

The FTC wants influencers to tell their followers clearly if they’re getting paid. They could do this by using hashtags like #ad or #sponsored. It’s important for brands to tell influencers exactly how to make these disclosures.

By being clear about sponsorships, brands and influencers can build trust with their audiences. This also helps them avoid legal problems and keeps customers happy because they know when something is an ad. Following these rules is a good way to keep a strong, honest relationship between brands, influencers, and their audiences.

Avoiding Legal Issues with Compensation and Disclosure

Working with influencers has become a mainstream marketing strategy, but it’s crucial for brands to adhere to legal regulations to avoid potential issues. Failing to comply can result in legal consequences.

To sidestep legal problems related to payments, make sure to have a well-defined agreement with the influencer. Both parties should know exactly what the compensation will be and when it will be delivered. Also, ensure your payment methods are in line with tax laws.

Transparency is equally important, especially when it comes to disclosing the relationship between a brand and an influencer. Use hashtags like #ad or #sponsored to clarify that posts are part of a paid partnership. This not only keeps you transparent but also helps you avoid legal issues regarding undisclosed endorsements.

Influencer Outreach’s Future

Influencer marketing is an integral part of today’s digital landscape and is expected to be a $15 billion industry by 2022. As the field evolves, the strategies used for influencer outreach are also changing.

One growing trend is the use of micro-influencers, who may have smaller followings but are more engaged and can target specific niches effectively. Trust and transparency are increasingly important in these partnerships. Brands should focus on forming real relationships with influencers, rather than simply buying posts.

Advancements in technology may also bring about AI-driven platforms that help brands more efficiently find the right influencers and measure their campaign impact. The future will likely emphasize long-term collaborations over single, transactional partnerships.

How AI and Virtual Influencers Will Change Influencer Outreach

The growth of AI and virtual characters is changing the way companies connect with influencers. With smarter AI, companies can even make their own virtual characters to act as spokespeople for their brands. This cuts down on the need for traditional, human influencers.

However, this new technology also has its downsides. People might find it hard to trust these virtual characters because they aren’t real individuals with real experiences. Companies will need to figure out how to make these virtual voices feel authentic.

AI can also help in another way: it can find the perfect influencer for a campaign by analyzing data. This makes the process quicker and more efficient. Both the good and bad sides of using AI and virtual characters will continue to affect influencer marketing in the years to come.

Strategies for Brands to Stay Ahead

To stay competitive, brands need to constantly adapt to new industry trends. Keeping an eye on emerging changes helps brands innovate and update their offerings to meet customers’ evolving needs. Research and development play a key role in anticipating these trends.

Another important strategy is authentic engagement with influencers. Instead of seeing them just as promotional tools, brands should aim for meaningful, long-term connections with influencers who truly resonate with their values.

This not only builds credibility but also cultivates a community around the brand. Transparency is also key, especially when disclosing sponsored collaborations.

Conclusion

Influencers can significantly boost a brand’s visibility, reach new customer bases, and drive sales. These relationships should be nurtured and valued, rather than seen as mere business transactions.

Be cautious in your outreach to influencers. Spamming them or offering low compensation can be counterproductive. Focus instead on identifying influencers whose beliefs match your brand’s message.

For the best outcomes in influencer engagement, aim for ongoing partnerships rather than short-term campaigns. This fosters trust and keeps the influencers more committed to advocating your brand. Remember, the most effective influencer strategies are built on mutual benefit and long-term commitment.

The post Influencing the Influencers: A Comprehensive Guide appeared first on Hongkiat.

The etiquettes outlined below should not be seen as rigid laws that must be followed to the letter. Instead, I want to stress that they are merely suggestions designed to enrich our social interactions and experiences on Facebook. It’s essential to understand that social interactions do not lend themselves to a one-size-fits-all strategy. Therefore, I urge you to consider these guidelines thoughtfully, applying them as you find appropriate, and always with a touch of personal judgment!

Five Dos:

1. DM Private Matters Instead of Posting On Feed

As much as you may have exhibitionistic tendencies and want everyone to know your most intimate secrets, others may not share the same inclination. Your friends might not take it too kindly when you post what they did last night at your house party, or any other details that are understood to be kept between your closest friends.

The fact is, most of their Facebook friends will hear about it on such a public platform. The walls indeed have ears, especially so for the Facebook Feed. It’s best to keep these conversations behind closed doors in Facebook Messenger.

2. Call Rather Than Post Personal News

This isn’t just Facebook etiquette; it’s social etiquette or even common sense. If you need to inform your friends or family about some important and personal news (e.g., a death in the family), don’t declare it in the public domain. Facebook is a social networking site, and it’s supposed to be public. This means that people can find out what happened.

Another reason not to post is courtesy. It’s the same reason why you shouldn’t text (or even the phone) to break up with someone. It’s rude and insincere to convey important news, whether good or bad, without having some form of genuine communication through voice tones and body language.

3. Be Mindful of What You Post

When you have hundreds of friends and acquaintances on Facebook, you have people from all kinds of backgrounds, with different jobs, beliefs, personalities, etc. Updating your status with a general statement may seem harmless to you, but others may read it in a different light.

For example, you might make a remark about how advertisers con unsuspecting consumers into buying something they don’t need.

What you may not realize is that some of your friends in the advertising industry could see your status in their newsfeed. It’s a general statement, but they might think you are targeting them. Of course, it’s not going to be any fun if you’re going to consider all the possible misinterpretations before you post anything, but it’s wise to be mindful of it.

4. Reply to Comments Especially If They are Questions

You post a status, and your friends make comments and ‘like’ it. I guess the least you can do is acknowledge them by replying, especially when there are questions directed at you.

I’m not saying you should do it just for the sake of doing it, but add to their comments once in a while. If you ignore them all the time, chances are that they won’t bother with your status anymore, lest they look silly talking to a wall. It’s almost like karma.

5. Avoid Posting Comments on Every Post

If you’re stalking your friend, leave it at that. Don’t make a habit of commenting on everything your friends post, or they’ll start to get suspicious. Even if you say with all honesty that you are not stalking them, it’s not going to be easy for them to believe that their status updates always appear on your newsfeed.

It’s an open secret that everyone checks out their friends’ profiles every now and then, but to comment on everything is to admit that you are constantly checking up on them. What’s even worse is that your friend’s friends might notice as well, seeing that you are a ‘regular’ commenter. If you don’t wish to be labeled a pest, try to limit your comments somewhat.

Bonus: Be Careful with Your Tone

As with all other online communication, communicating on Facebook is mostly textual. We can neither hear the voice tone nor see the body language when the other person ‘speaks.’ In other words, it’s easy for someone to think you are being sarcastic when you are not, or to misunderstand you in some other way for that matter. To complicate things, everyone has their own typing style.

One way we can compensate for the lack of cues is to use emojis. It’s pretty limited, but experience has taught me that a simple smiley face after a sentence can do wonders in neutralizing any potential tension. Smile, and the whole world smiles with you :)

Five Don’ts:

1. Make Friend Requests to Strangers

Some people have this idea that the number of ‘friends’ you have on Facebook is a status of your popularity in real life. That may be true if these ‘friends’ are people whom you know offline, and not strangers whom you randomly add while browsing through the Facebook network.

The idea becomes warped when people add friends merely for the sake of boosting their ‘popularity indicator’ among their peers. That’s not cool. However, if you wish to add someone for a valid reason, such as getting to know a girl you have a crush on, do so with an introduction or through a mutual friend. Skipping that step only leaves a bad impression, which is the last thing you want.

2. Tag Your Friends in ‘Unglam’ Shots

Guys may take it lightly when they are tagged in photos that look as if they’ve just woken up from bed, thinking it’s a joke pulled off by their friends. For women, though, appearing ‘unglam’ means a lot more. Of course, this applies to some men as well. What you need to take from this rule is to be sensitive about who you might be tagging in photos, especially those shots that are obviously poorly taken.

3. Overshare Yourself

Checking out the updates on your newsfeed, you see the same friend updating his status over and over again. Not insightful ones, but just posts about what he’s doing every ten minutes. How exciting. You decide to hide his posts.

Sound familiar? Probably. It’s annoying because no one is really interested in their friends’ everyday mundane activities, yet they just keep popping up in their updates. Spice up your status updates a little. Instead of telling your friends you’re in the restroom taking a leak, share something interesting about yourself.

4. Vent About Your work

Facebook is a double-edged sword when it comes to its social networking capabilities. The boon is that it enables us to connect in an unprecedented manner with friends of friends of friends through the identification of mutual friendships. On the other hand, the bane is that there’s easily a way to gather information about you by passing through such layers one by one.

Even with your most stringent Facebook privacy settings, there’s still a risk that what you post can reach people you wouldn’t want it to reach, and your co-workers and boss are the last people you want to mess with. So, just play it safe and leave your venting for somewhere private.

5. Post Chain Status Updates

Remember those chain emails that demand you forward them to all of your friends or you’ll die a horrible, horrible death? Well, Facebook has a similar kind of chain, but usually for a good cause. Someone may post a status update about a social cause, encouraging those who read it to post the status too, so that their friends will get to read it and post it as well. This chain thus spreads the cause, raising public awareness.

The intention here is right, but sometimes too much of a good thing isn’t good. When you see your newsfeed updates filled with the same status, you get annoyed instead, and you may associate your negative emotion with that social cause.

Bonus: Flame Others

Everyone is entitled to state their own opinion on the free internet, so there’s no need to put anyone down just because you disagree (or worse, dislike the person). Sometimes I even see people criticizing the comments of a friend’s friend who replied to a post, even though they don’t know them. It’s embarrassing not only to yourself but to your friend as well.

In the spirit of good conversations, let’s keep this in mind in all our online communications, whether on Facebook, in forums, emails, etc. Don’t ruin it for everyone.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, it’s entirely up to us to follow these etiquette rules. I guess it’s about finding the balance between being fun and sensitive to everyone. On one hand, we shouldn’t restrict ourselves with rules and regulations that would limit the creativity and spontaneity of our social interactions.

On the other hand, we ought to be aware of the public nature of Facebook to protect our privacy, and at the same time, respect the fact that each one of us forms part of the Facebook experience for everyone else. Find the right balance, and you’ll not only improve that experience for yourself but also help others enjoy it as well!

The post Essential Facebook Etiquette: 10 Dos and Don’ts appeared first on Hongkiat.

Eligibility Requirements

To be considered for the ad revenue-sharing program, candidates must meet all the following criteria:

1. Membership Status: Subscribe to either Twtter Blue or Verified Organizations.
2. Impressions: Accumulate at least 15 million impressions on posts within the last three months.
3. Followers: Have a minimum of 500 followers.

To apply or check your eligibility, visit Twitter’s monetization settings.

The Ads Revenue Sharing program will be available to most countries, see this page (under ‘Country Availability’) for the list of countries.

How the Program Works?

Content creators will earn a share of revenue generated from verified users’ impressions of ads displayed in replies to their posts.

Payment Process

To participate in Twitter’s ad revenue-sharing program and receive your earnings, you’ll first need to have an active Stripe account. This account will be the primary method through which payments are processed.

Once you have fulfilled the program’s requirements and generated more than $50 USD, you will be eligible to receive payouts.

Real-world Earnings

According to this tweet, content creators have already started earning significant amounts upon signing up.

Content creators can now make a living off Twitter.  pic.twitter.com/aC8cs3WTZF

— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) July 13, 2023

Further Information

For a comprehensive understanding of X’s ad revenue-sharing program, please refer to the official Twitter help page.

The post Twitter’s Ad Revenue Sharing: Essential Information for Content Creators appeared first on Hongkiat.

Now, think about what you do when you’re not connected to the Internet. I hope your answer isn’t a spur-of-the-moment, socially acceptable response. Many of us who earn our living online also use the Internet for our leisure activities. These might include playing games, socializing from the comfort of our armchairs, and perhaps even keeping tabs on our exes. As you might guess, these aren’t the healthiest of pastimes.

Our preference for gadgets, text, and images over real-life interactions could be a sign of bigger issues on the horizon. In this article, we’ll briefly discuss some of the ways our Internet addiction is causing problems for us. We’ll also explore why it’s increasingly important to disconnect from the digital world in order to reconnect with humanity.

Our Well-being

Recently, I found myself grappling with a brief episode of ‘computer fatigue.’ It’s a genuine set of symptoms, although not severe enough to warrant a sick day. You might have encountered it too: a persistent strain across your nose bridge, between your eyes; blurred vision, a metallic taste, headaches, and mild dizziness. These symptoms aren’t severe enough to necessitate a doctor’s visit, but they can hinder productivity to a noticeable extent.

After clocking in an average of 13 hours daily on the computer, I yearned to return to traditional paper-based work, at least until my health improved. A grueling week later, I discovered the remedy: a much-needed 12-hour sleep marathon.

The following morning, all my symptoms had vanished. One of the perks of having an understanding boss, particularly in the freelancing world, is their tolerance for such minor setbacks. However, I think it’s essential to advocate for better self-care, especially considering how relatable this scenario might be for many of us.

Family and Friends

The old adage cautions against mixing business with pleasure, but it’s unclear where ‘family’ fits into this equation. In the traditional 9-to-5 work environment, many of us find our time with loved ones dwindling. This issue is exacerbated when we become engrossed in the digital world.

Our increasing reliance on the Internet, whether it’s for responding to emails, reading blogs, browsing social media, or pursuing hobbies on our PCs, mobiles, or tablets, inversely affects the time we spend with those around us.

Despite boasting hundreds or even thousands of friends on Facebook, how many do we actually meet for a casual drink? And when we do, how much quality time do we truly spend with them? More often than not, upon settling down and placing your order, both of you might immediately reach for your smartphones, scrolling through daily updates, news, tweets, and messages before finding a topic to discuss.

Ironically, we tend to spend more time interacting with friends on our phones than with those sitting right in front of us. In essence, the quicker we connect to a nearby Wi-Fi network, the faster we disconnect from the real world.

Creativity

“Undoubtedly, creativity is the most valuable resource humans possess. Without it, progress would be impossible, and we would be stuck in an endless loop of repetition.” – Edward de Bono.

Consider this: Advancements and innovations are born from ideas. These technological leaps forward propel our society’s progress.

Therefore, it’s vital to ensure a continuous flow of ideas, which is where creativity comes into play. Creative ideas are unique – sometimes they are a new twist on an existing concept, while at other times, they are entirely revolutionary. Examples include quantum physics, the ability to fly, electricity, and more recently, the tablet.

The potential of the human mind is astounding when we allow an idea to mature over time.

The Dilemma of Originality and Sharing

In today’s digital age, the ease of sharing content has seemingly diminished the need or motivation to create original ideas. The question arises: why fix what isn’t broken?

We see this trend in various aspects of our lives. Students and academics heavily rely on Wikipedia for research, while blogs often recycle content from other sources. Memes and rage comics rehash old jokes that have been circulating since the internet’s inception, and YouTube is brimming with covers of popular songs by talented young artists.

The impact of this ‘sharing is caring’ mentality extends beyond just these examples. Consider the film industry: 2012 was dubbed the ‘year of the sequel,’ with over 95 movie sequels in production and at least 50 films slated for remakes. This pattern is also evident in the music industry with its abundance of covers and mash-ups, and in literature, where originality can sometimes be questioned (as seen with the Hunger Games series).

This trend, coupled with the fact that credit is often overlooked on the web, prompts us to consider whether we are indeed running out of new ideas. If this is the case, it may lend credence to Edward de Bono’s assertion about the state of originality in our society.

Disconnecting from the Digital World

Technology, with its captivating allure, effortlessly provides us with what we desire, when we desire it. In today’s world, it may seem challenging to spend a day without our smartphones, constantly checking for notifications, engaging in online games, or sharing our latest meal on social media.

However, when the weekend rolls around, it’s essential to take a break from the digital realm. This is a time to reconnect with our physical selves, the people around us, and our surroundings.

Engage in activities that don’t require immediate feedback or comments from others. You could try writing for your own pleasure, learning to play a new musical instrument, or picking up a book from your shelf without reading a review first.

Consider embarking on a road trip with your partner, children, or even your mother. Alternatively, you could invite your college friends for a camping, fishing, or abseiling adventure. Be bold and try something new that doesn’t involve signing up or logging into a website.

If possible, leave your electronic devices behind. If you can’t leave your home for a trip, consider turning off your Wi-Fi. Reconnect with yourself through meditation, a relaxing bubble bath, or by preparing a delicious salad just for you.

Conclusion

As humans, we are inherently social creatures. Even though social networks have become a significant part of our lives, they can’t replace the unique joy of sharing a cup of coffee with a friend in a cozy café, sheltered from the rain, while enjoying good music. This simple experience can often be more rewarding than we ever imagined.

Moreover, one thing that people can provide, which technology cannot, is emotional and moral support, along with the motivation to keep striving. This is a realm where technology falls short.

The post Get Off The Internet: A Challenge to Reconnect With Yourself appeared first on Hongkiat.

Regardless of whether you’re a brand, influencer, or creator, you likely have a multitude of tasks to manage. Utilizing the appropriate Instagram tools can provide an opportunity to find clients on social media, thereby fostering your business growth.

Quintly

Quintly is a powerful analytics platform designed to empower you with comprehensive insights into your social media profiles’ performance. The tool is user-friendly enough so that anyone can gain a deep understanding of their social media metrics across all platforms.

The tool allows users to track key performance indicators (KPIs) such as engagement rates, follower growth, reach, and audience demographics. This valuable information will enable you to identify trends and make data-driven decisions.

Without a tool like Quintly, you’ll have to switch through different campaign dashboards per channel, making it difficult to have a holistic view of your overall online performance. Quintly consolidates everything into a single, intuitive dashboard, enabling you to spot areas for improvement and optimize your content.

You’ll also have access to social media management features, including scheduling, team collaborations, and competitor analysis.

Social Pilot

Social Pilot is a social media management tool designed to help entrepreneurs, influencers, and creators manage their online presence effectively. The tool enables you to publish, schedule, and analyze content all in one place.

A favorite feature is its content calendar, which allows users to plan and schedule posts across multiple social media platforms. This saves you time and effort and lets you focus on the most critical aspect of social media success – content creation. Of course, you’ll also have a suite of analytics tools to help you track and monitor your performance.

You can also access advanced features such as Client Management, Team Collaboration, and RSS Feeds Automation, making it perfect for businesses or creators who manage multiple channels.

Determ

Determ is a media monitoring software that automates the process of tracking all media and public mentions about your brand in any language. Having a tool like Determ enables you to understand the general sentiment about your brand or business and analyze competitors so that you can achieve business growth and make informed decisions.

Unlike other monitoring tools that focus mainly on the major social media platforms, Determ can cover other sources like news portals, forums, comments, and blogs.

It also has a feature called Spike Alerts that notifies you of any sudden increase in mentions so that you can stay on top of your reputation and act quickly. Determ is an excellent tool for any growing business, influencer, or public persona, not just for managing their reputation but also for staying updated about relevant industry news.

Keyhole

Keyhole is a social media analytics and listening tool that provides valuable insights into your brand and audience. With its real-time monitoring capabilities, you can track conversations, mentions, and sentiments. This enables you to engage more effectively with your audience and create content that resonates with them.

The tool employs advanced machine learning to identify emerging trends and keywords gaining traction. This foresight allows you to stay ahead of the conversation and leverage this knowledge to create impactful campaigns.

Keyhole also offers an impressive influencer tracking feature. It generates visually stunning reports and data visualizations, assisting marketers in identifying the best influencers to collaborate with. You can request a list of relevant creators, ranked by engagement and following. This feature is useful for pre-engagement, ongoing campaigns, and post-campaign reviews.

Animaker

Video is the most popular content today. However, video editing and animation can be expensive and time-consuming. With Animaker, anyone can create visually stunning videos in a few minutes. Its drag-and-drop editor is easy to use and customizable.

The platform comes ready with templates, filters, visual effects, voiceovers, and even characters so you have everything you need to produce any type of video for your business or personal brand. Plus, you have millions of stock videos and photos to choose from.

Animaker has an instant resizer tool that ensures all your videos are optimized for your social media platform of choice.

Jasper AI

Aside from visual content, brand tone of voice is one thing that can set you apart from competitors. Brand tone of voice can be seen in any written content, such as captions, blogs, and scripts, which can take a ton of time to create. Jasper AI is a customizable copywriting AI that can do that and more for you.

You can teach Jasper AI to write in your brand’s tone of voice by uploading existing content and brand guidelines, sending a URL to your website, or simply telling it about you. Once it learns all about you, you’re assured that everything remains consistently on-brand with minimal effort.

Bulk.ly

Having Bulk.ly in your arsenal of tools can simplify and enhance your social media management experience. Automate the time-consuming process of scheduling and content calendar creation for your various profiles so that you can focus on brainstorming content.

Other features include Hashtag Assignment, Recycle Posts, and RSS Automation. If you have a website or blog, Bulk.ly can automatically generate social media posts every time you have an update. It also has a drip scheduling feature that ensures you have regular updates on your social pages, whether throughout the day, week, or month.

Bulk.ly automates the tedious stuff so you can concentrate on building your businesses or online brand.

Planable

Planable is the perfect tool for teams as it allows you to upload content, gather feedback, and get approval in one place and in real time. It’s handy for businesses with marketing teams who experience bottlenecks in the approval process and for creators collaborating with brands.

Planable allows you to visualize how your content will look once it’s live on your chosen social media platform to avoid surprise hiccups. You can even tweak captions and add emojis or hashtags within the platform.

Workspace owners can give collaborators different permission levels, allowing relevant team members to leave comments, make edits, and clear it for publishing. You can also keep different workspaces, which is excellent for businesses with multiple ongoing campaigns and creators with various brand partnerships.

Unfold

Unfold is a mobile app and creative toolkit made for businesses and content creators who are always on the go. The app has hundreds of eye-catching templates, filters, and effects you can edit and adjust to your liking.

Unfold shortens the creative process as you never have to start from scratch – just import your photo or video, choose from the curated designs, and customize as needed. What’s best is that the app is incredibly user-friendly, so you don’t need any design experience to produce professional-grade content.

One of the app’s most useful features is the Feed Planner, which allows you to plan and visualize your Instagram feed in advance.

The app is free to download on the App Store and Google Play Store, but there are also paid versions, Unfold+ or Pro, which unlock premium features.

GRIN

GRIN is a creator management platform that can turn businesses into top-selling brands with the help of partnerships with the right content creators. The platform can find ideal creators you otherwise wouldn’t have known about and provide you with the tools to build deeper connections with them.

GRIN has a tab where you can find all creator-made and user-generate (UGC) content in one place without using Monday.com alternatives for team communication, It makes it easy to repurpose and put all winning content to good use. Plus, you’ll find all your campaign stats and metrics in one dashboard where you can view and compare KPIs.

What’s best is that it also takes care of the tedious contracts needed when working with creators and influencers. GRIN ensures you’re free to share, edit, and reuse all creator-produced content.

Since GRIN is all about building authentic relationships, one of its highlighted features is Relationship Management. Every message between you and your partners – whether sent through email or Slack – can be found in a single Communications Hub.

Conclusion

Having the right set of tools can be instrumental in driving the success of your brand, whether you’re a business, influencer, or content creator.

From analytics dashboards and social media management tools to AI language and design platforms – every tool we mentioned plays a unique role in supercharging your brand in the ever-evolving digital world.

Use one tool or a handful and see a boost in productivity and campaign performance in no time.

The post 10 Instagram Tools for Businesses, Influencers and Creators appeared first on Hongkiat.

The vast majority of the conversation around generative AI for content is focused on text outputs, but there’s also plenty of buzz around relatively new capabilities like text-to-image – especially code bases like Midjourney and DALL-E, which let you create totally new visuals in a any artistic style from nothing more than a descriptive prompt. A few weeks ago, for example, some visuals portraying Donald Trump skirmishing with police and Pope Francis wearing a puffer coat, went viral.

What’s more, AI “magic avatar” generators like Lensa blew up in December, with our social feeds surfacing computer-created versions of our friends looking more “fantastical” than before, but the hype around that use case seems to have plateaued in recent months.

But that doesn’t mean our fascination with AI-enhanced visuals is over. Did you know that AI can improve your images in scroll-stopping ways that go way beyond what filters were capable of even a year ago? Here are three lesser-known AI functionalities that you can use to generate eye-catching images and dominate the platforms.

1. Turbo-charge image resolution

Enhancing image resolution might sound like old news, but AI enables “super-resolution,” which is a whole new ball game. Newer AI tools use deep learning techniques to increase resolution with even more precision. They can remove noise and flaws from photos, restore focus to out-of-focus pictures, and correct low lighting, resulting in images that are sharper and higher quality.

There are loads of platforms offering this functionality, including HitPaw, which is recommended for its ease of use and reliability. You can correct any image in just a couple of clicks. Simply upload your photo, apply the correction, and enjoy the result.

It’s well worth using AI’s powerful resolution enhancements to improve your photos. Outstandingly clear images allow your account to grab attention in a crowded field. Social media platforms prioritize high-quality content, and sharper images look more professional, helping you gain more engagement and in turn, more followers.

High-quality visuals also add to your account’s credibility and boosts loyalty among your audience. Posting consistently excellent and professional-looking content can help you establish a reputation as someone trustworthy and authentic, and if you’re interested in landing sponsored content deals, this can attract more brands to work with you.

2. Transform moods and settings

AI can turn an ordinary photo into something truly extraordinary, using a deep learning technique called Neural Style Transfer. This uses algorithms to learn different artistic styles and then apply the style of one image to another. It’s best used for landscape and scenery photos, or room interiors.

For example, you could turn your vacation photo into a painting in the style of Monet, transform the view out your window into a post-apocalyptic landscape from The Last of Us, or convert a snap of your new living room setup into an other-worldly environment. Neural style transfer also enables you to amplify specific features of the image and make others blurred or more abstract, drastically changing the atmosphere of your visuals.

Lightricks Photoleap is one of the top AI apps for this kind of project. You can use its new “AI Scenes” tool to transfigure even the most mundane image into an arresting visual, upgrade humdrum stock images into something unique and alluring, and apply specific moods and ambience to any picture.

AI style transfer enables you to set your imagination free. Original visuals allow you to expand your reputation for inventiveness, appeal to an even larger audience. When your images express your individuality, you can build a distinct visual brand that makes every post recognizably “yours” and helps you stand out from the masses, helping you to build a tribe of followers.

3. Colorize scans of vintage photos

We’re in the midst of a wave of interest in genealogy and family history. Many people are seeking their roots, unearthing old photos, and scanning and uploading images of time gone by. Most of these photos are black and white or sepia tones, which eradicate vivid details like skin tones and clothing colors and can make the subjects seem flat and dull. But new AI tools make it easy to tint and colorize these pictures accurately and realistically.

You can use MyHeritage InColor to quickly colorize your old images in a single click. With MyHeritage, there’s no loss of quality for the processed images, and the AI algorithm is trustworthy when it comes to color matching. This is particularly important when you’re colorizing portraits and want to apply authentic skin tone shades.

Accurate, reliable colorization is a valuable capability. It helps us feel the atmosphere that was captured in the photo, imagine the feelings and hopes of the subjects of each image, and brings the past closer to the present day. Colored photos increase our sense of connection to family members and loved ones from the past, and help us feel a stronger relationship with people who may have lived very different lives.

AI image editing can turbocharge your social media images

AI offers a wealth of exciting and innovative possibilities for editing and manipulating images. Creators and anyone who loves posting images should be trying out these options to unleash their creativity, establish a unique visual brand, and draw more eyes to their social media images.

The post 3 Ways You Didn’t Know AI Can Enhance Your Social Media Images appeared first on Hongkiat.

The posting of statuses is the most basic kind of sharing because it only requires the use of words to express ourselves, our thoughts, and opinions.

I’m sure you’ve come across various types of Facebook status updates and might have realized that they can be categorized into different genres. If you’ve been observant, you would see that some of your friends tend to post a similar kind of post.

This is probably what makes social networking sites so interesting and addictive; we get to infer a person’s character and personality from their posts and even learn to appreciate the individual differences in perspectives.

Ever wonder what type of Facebooker you are? Here are ten of the most common I’ve come across:

Recommended Reading: Essential Facebook Etiquette: 10 Dos And Don’ts

1. The Announcers

These Facebookers seem to treat their Facebook wall as someone to report their status to. From the moment they wake to the moment they lay back in the warmth of their beds at the end of the day, you can see that they broadcast to the network what they’re up to at any given moment.

Not everyone on the list will want to know what you’re doing now, so it may be just a matter of time before they block you from their newsfeed. I suppose it’s best to keep that to a minimum or it’ll just be noise to others.

2. The Status Reporters

These Facebookers seem to treat their Facebook wall as someone to report their status to. From the moment they wake to the moment they lay back in the warmth of their beds at the end of the day, you can see that they broadcast to the network what they’re up to at any given moment.

Not everyone in the list will want to know what you’re doing now, so it may be just a matter of time before they block you from their newsfeed. I suppose it’s best to keep that to a minimal or it’ll just be noise to others.

3. The Bloggers

It used to be the case that status updates were limited to 160 characters. Then the limit was increased to 420, 500, and even 5,000 characters. As of November 2011, the limit is a whopping 60,000! Now, people can post their entire blog entry as their status updates, and this is exactly what bloggers (in the context of Facebook users) do. They simply tell everyone about how their day went and go on and on, sometimes without realizing that not many will be fascinated by the nitty-gritty details. Due to the broadcasting nature of status updates, people within their network have no choice but to see them on their newsfeed, unless they block them, which they probably will if it borders on being annoying.

4. The Braggarts & Show-offs

Have you ever tried to boast about your accomplishments while keeping it modest to others? It can be quite an art. Yet, when done properly, others will find you less annoying than someone who can’t seem to stay humble with their words. It’s the same with Facebook users; if they wish to advertise themselves every now and then, they must do it subtly, lest they get labeled as braggarts and show-offs.

I’m all for people being proud of their achievements in life and wanting to share them with the rest of the world. But when it comes to telling everyone, every time, that you’re great in so many different aspects, you create a reputation – a bad one, for yourself. That’s how it is with braggarts and show-offs and their self-promoting tendencies. Many of their status updates center around what they’re good at (imaginary or real, it doesn’t matter).

My advice is this: Keep it subtle and don’t overdo it.

5. The Quoters & ‘Lyricists’

Quoters repeat the words of famous individuals, while “Lyricists” quote song lyrics in their status updates. In both circumstances, the updates aren’t exactly their own words.

Nevertheless, when they include the words of others in their updates, it usually relates to their circumstances or at least their thoughts. Sometimes, such updates serve as puzzles to some, requiring their imaginative interpretation to understand what is really meant by the update.

6. The Philosophers

Philosophers are similar to Quoters and Lyricists in that they often create an aura of mystery with their statuses. The major difference is that they don’t simply copy and paste someone else’s words; they create their own quotes. These Facebookers tend to be an introspective bunch who like to reflect on their lives and come up with something abstract yet conclusive from their musings.

I must say I like their status updates because they sound genuine. In fact, I myself tend to fall under this category. From time to time, such posts make a lot of sense to me because they relate to life as a whole. I can’t say the same for others; some may find such posts irritating as they don’t like to be preached at.

7. The Complaint Kings & Queens

There is a lot of negative energy coming from this kind of Facebook users because their status updates revolve around what is wrong in their lives. Their status updates tend to encourage others to complain about the same things that they are complaining about, be it the government or the traffic. Some of these rants can get pretty vulgar in an attempt to draw attention from others.

When a particular Facebook user is a chronic complainer, his or her friends may soon realize this fact and stop supporting their ’causes’. It gets to the point that they think the user is only complaining for the sake of complaining, so they stop commenting or ‘liking’ the angry statuses. Generally speaking, people don’t go to Facebook to get worked up over life’s stressors, so it’s just a matter of time before these Complaint Kings and Queens get isolated.

8. The EMOs or Self-Pitiers

These are yet another group of Facebookers who thrive on negative energy. Similar to Complaint Kings & Queens, they believe that the world is against them. However, they take a more defensive stance, seeking sympathy from their friends on the network to side with them.

Of course, I’m not saying that all Facebookers who post negative status updates are people who desperately want others to pity them. Even if they do, it’s perfectly fine to seek some comfort and assurance from our dearest friends from time to time. I guess the same principle applies: what annoys Facebookers is the chronic posting of such negative updates, which I had mentioned earlier, as it’s not what people log in to Facebook to see.

9. The Puzzlers

Posts by Puzzlers tend to be very ambiguous and can be interpreted in many different ways. Sometimes the intention is to subtly get back at someone, while at other times, the update is just a reflection of what’s on their mind at the moment. As you can see from the example above, it can sound a little psychotic.

I suppose Facebookers who do this get a kick from the variety of feedback they may receive as a result of their updates. After all, such updates tend to draw much attention from curious friends within their network. However, when done too frequently, some of these friends may get tired of it and stop commenting altogether.

10. The Comedians

Perhaps the most likable kind of updates come from the Comedians. After all, most people log in to Facebook to be entertained in a lighthearted manner. Many of us don’t want to hear about others feeling sorry for themselves or preaching philosophy to us. Humorous status updates seem more appealing because we just want a break from our daily stresses.

A lighthearted approach to life is perhaps the best philosophy for some. I think that when it comes to Facebook, people log in to temporarily escape from something, be it a boring and mundane task or a particularly stressful day.

When we see humor on our newsfeed, it puts our life into perspective. After maybe half an hour of aimless surfing on Facebook (provided we don’t get addicted to it!), we can be back in the right mood to handle what we were dealing with before.

The post 10 Common Types of Facebook Updates appeared first on Hongkiat.

All the information we obtain online – the emails, news feeds, tweets, social networking statuses, etc. – can make us feel a little overwhelmed. If we don’t have some form of organization in our online life, it will be hard to stay away long enough to live out our offline life.

I believe that we ought to distance ourselves from our online life to experience the richness of the offline world. How do we do that? By simplifying what we deal with online on a day-to-day basis. Not only will it help make us more efficient with our online activities, but it will also give us some time off to get away from our matters on the web.

Here are nine tips you might consider using to help straighten out the mess.

1. Block Out Distractions

There you are, working on your latest report that needs to be submitted by the end of the day. You probably have either Facebook or some instant messaging chat going on in the background.

What usually follows is switching between windows every few minutes to check out Facebook updates, the latest tweets, or even replying to that blinking taskbar from your chat app. Personally, I feel that this keeps me going when the task at hand gets too boring.

On the other hand, I know how much more I could accomplish if I placed all my attention on the work to be done and removed all unnecessary distractions. If you don’t want your online life to interfere with whatever you have to do, take my advice and put them aside.

Despite being able to connect and obtain information like never before, such benefits can actually backfire and become a liability if you find yourself addicted to being connected all the time.

2. Leverage Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is currently trending for good reasons. Instead of storing data on a fixed storage device like a hard drive or thumb drive, cloud computing allows you to store it on the internet, in an online storage device. This way, whenever you are connected to the internet on any device, you will still have access to all your vital information.

Cloud computing enables you to be mobile. Storing all your data online offers unprecedented convenience. You don’t have to carry around storage devices and worry about misplacing them or forgetting to bring them from one venue to another.

Secondly, you can access all your data anywhere an internet connection is available and switch from one connected device to the next. Online life is made simpler with file-sharing apps like Dropbox and synchronization services like Google Sync, Google Drive, or Amazon Cloud Drive.

3. Minimizing Accounts

A simple solution is to reduce the number of accounts you hold. If you have multiple social networking and email accounts for different purposes (e.g., work, family, friends), it can be difficult to manage them individually and ensure you are using the correct account to contact people.

Additionally, unless you use the same password for each account (which is not recommended), you may struggle to remember passwords.

Adopt a minimalist approach to simplify your online presence. Ideally, limit yourself to no more than two social networking and email accounts each, or consider accessing all your social networking sites through a desktop app.

4. Manage Your Notifications/Updates

Make sure to preserve any HTML codes. Subscribing to too many RSS feeds can be overwhelming, as can receiving daily notifications on your smartphone about the latest updates on Facebook, new app add-ons, and other clutter.

Remember that each notification takes your attention away from what you’re doing. If you want a simple and efficient online experience, you don’t want unnecessary interruptions. Configure your notification settings to filter out only what you really need to know.

5. Designate Time for Online Tasks

I have an unhealthy tendency to check my inbox, Facebook, news sites, and so on every 5-15 minutes, even when I’m occupied with something on my computer. Sitting in front of a screen has conditioned me to do my routine tasks even as I am working on my own assignments.

Multitasking is good at times, but I hardly think repetitive checking is productive. It’s pretty obvious that these actions are robbing us of valuable time. Why not get our work done before we go check out the latest gossip on Facebook? The idea is to set aside some time to handle all our online tasks, perhaps at the end of the day when we can get all the updates for the day.

6. Unsubscribe from Email Lists

We often get subscribed to various email lists when we purchase or register for products and services. This is how companies market their latest products or update us on their activities. After a while, we may realize that many of these emails do not provide us with the information we want, but we subscribed earlier because we thought they might be useful eventually.

So, we instinctively delete those emails from our inbox when we recognize the sender. However, why not just unsubscribe from their mailing list? If your inbox is often flooded with spam, you will be surprised at how good it feels to only receive emails that you want to read.

7. Clear Your Inbox

Stopping unnecessary incoming emails is one thing, but clearing your inbox is another. Put read emails into relevant folders if necessary, but keep the inbox clean. It should only contain unread emails.

Clearing your inbox requires discipline that you must impose on yourself. This means that once you receive an email that requires your action, you must act on it – reply, forward, follow up, double-check, confirm, etc. – and be done with it as soon as possible.

Afterward, you can archive the email and feel a sense of satisfaction when you realize your inbox is empty until the next round of emails flows in. Once you have such a system in place, your online world will be more simplified, knowing that you don’t have to work on emails anymore.

Read also: Gmail Advanced Search – Ultimate Guide

8. Use Password Managers

For those with many online accounts, I bet that most of you reuse the same username and password because it’s not easy to remember all of them. However, this is not safe because if one of your accounts is hacked, the rest of them can be compromised as well.

A solution to this problem is to use password managers to remember your passwords. They are actually more secure than manually entering your passwords because they protect you from keyloggers that can capture your keystrokes.

Moreover, password managers compare the current site’s URL to the stored sites’ URL, which helps prevent phishing and pharming attacks. In addition to these security features, most password managers also assist in filling out lengthy web forms that you may encounter. Consider getting and setting up a password manager to better protect your accounts.

9. Take Timeouts or Days Off

Try to schedule timeouts from the internet every day or even on days off. If you are connected all the time, you will feel like you are always on the go, ready to jump into whatever emails or tasks you receive.

Everyone needs a break and to enjoy quality time away from such tension. Take an hour or so of quality offline time each day or a day during the weekends. Just switch off from the net. You will realize that you feel much more energetic and alive when you are moving around and talking to people.

Conclusion

Social interactions offline are much more valuable than those made on instant messengers or social networking sites. Similarly, nothing done in front of a computer screen can substitute for an awesome workout under the sun. The online aspect of your life should complement your offline world, not replace it. Simplify it, and you’ll see that it can work wonders for you.

The post 9 Ideas to Simplify Your Online Life appeared first on Hongkiat.

Managing multiple social media platforms can be demanding. However, there are specific tools available to simplify your digital marketing tasks. These tools reveal the secret behind Pinterest’s effectiveness.

In this article, I’ll introduce a collection of 80 free tools, exclusively for Pinterest marketing. These tools aim to enhance productivity and save crucial time for digital and social media marketers. They help in various tasks such as identifying trending topics, posting or scheduling Pins, expanding the follower base, and analyzing Pinterest account metrics along with audience behavior.

Pinterest Tools to Create & Edit Pin Images

• Over: Designed by the team at GoDaddy, this desktop application (also available on mobile) allows users to design professional ads, branded content, and captivating visual materials.
• Adobe Illustrator: This renowned application is a vector graphics editor. It’s beneficial for designing logos, icons, and vector graphics.
• Adobe Lightroom: A comprehensive photo management and editing tool suitable for photographers across all expertise levels.
• Adobe Photoshop: This powerful tool is a go-to for both professionals and enthusiasts for image editing. It’s versatile, offering features for manipulating, retouching, and creating digital images.
• Adobe Express: Previously known as Adobe Spark, this user-friendly and free mobile app offers essential photo editing tools. It’s perfect for quick and easy photo adjustments when you’re on the move.
• Vistacreate: Elevate your design game with Vistacreate, an AI-powered platform designed to generate high-quality, bespoke designs effortlessly. No prior design experience needed. Explore more on this topic by checking out our curated list of Best AI Art Generators.
• Easel.ly: Experience hassle-free infographic creation with Easel.ly, a web-based tool that offers a diverse selection of customizable templates, shapes, and icons. Create visually stimulating and informative infographics with ease. For more resources, see our guide on infographic design tools.
• Visme: Unlock the potential of visual storytelling with Visme, a versatile web-based platform that empowers users to create and share stunning presentations, infographics, reports, and other types of visual content. For additional insights, you may also be interested in our post on Tools to Create Your Own Infographics.
• Canva.com: A web-based design platform offering easy-to-use templates and drag-and-drop tools. It provides a vast library of images and design elements, helping users create professional-looking graphics, presentations, and marketing materials.



Screenshot: Canva
• Easil: This web-based design platform empowers businesses and marketers to create visually striking content. It offers social media graphics, marketing materials, and print designs through a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface and an extensive library of design elements.
• Fotor: This is a free online photo editing and design tool. It features a range of editing options, effects, and templates to help you produce exceptional visuals for both personal and professional use.



Screenshot: Fotor
• GIFMaker.me: A free online platform that lets users create custom animated GIFs. You can upload images or videos and customize settings like size, speed, and looping.
• GIMP: This free and open-source image editing software offers a comprehensive suite of features and tools. These include advanced color adjustments, layer masking, and support for multiple file formats.
• Gravit Designer: This vector design software provides a powerful set of tools and an intuitive interface. It enables users to create captivating illustrations, graphics, and animations for both web and print.
• Infogram.com: A web-based data visualization tool that allows you to turn data into interactive charts, maps, and infographics. It offers easy-to-use templates, customization options, and real-time collaboration features.
• Pablo: Developed by Buffer.com, this tool is perfect for crafting beautiful images with text overlays, specifically designed for social media posts.



Screenshot: Buffer
• Page2Images.com: This web service enables users to capture and convert website screenshots into a variety of image formats for diverse applications.
• Phonto: A mobile application designed to allow users to personalize their photos by adding custom text in a wide range of fonts and styles.
• PicMarkr: This web-based application empowers users to add custom watermarks to their images, serving both protection and branding purposes.
• PicMonkey: An online tool offering photo editing and design capabilities, complete with a myriad of templates, effects, and tools to enhance and create images.
• Piktochart: This web-based application allows users to easily create and share visually compelling infographics, presentations, and reports.



Screenshot: Piktochart
• Pinthemall.net: A specialized bookmarking tool for collecting and organizing images from around the web into personalized boards for easy future reference.
• Pixlr: A free online photo editing and design tool that offers a user-friendly interface complemented by a comprehensive range of editing features.
• Repix: This mobile photo editing tool gives users the ability to enhance their photos with filters, effects, and custom brushes, and to share their creations with others.
• Quotescover.com: An online platform designed to let users create beautiful quote images, featuring customizable backgrounds, fonts, and styles suitable for social media and other digital platforms.



Screenshot: QuotesCover
• Quozio.com: This website specializes in converting quotes into visually captivating graphics, perfect for sharing on social media.
• Snagit: A comprehensive software offering the capability to capture screenshots, record videos, and even create GIFs with ease.
• Snappa: An online graphic design tool featuring a wide array of pre-made templates alongside customizable options for simplified design.
• Snapseed: A mobile photo editing application packed with advanced tools and filters for professional-grade photo enhancements.
• GetStencil.com: This website offers straightforward yet powerful graphic design tools for crafting social media posts, blog images, and more.



Screenshot: Stencils
• TinEye: A reverse image search engine designed to help users trace the origin of an image or discover its online usage.
• Venngage: An online platform providing users with drag-and-drop design tools and customizable templates for creating infographics, presentations, and other visual content.
• Visual.ly: A marketplace that connects businesses and individuals with freelance designers for the creation of custom visual content.
• Wordswag: This mobile application enables users to generate stylish typography designs through its built-in text layouts and filters, ideal for crafting eye-catching social media posts.



Screenshot: WordSwag

Pinterest Tools to Discover Content & Trending Topics

• Buzzsumo: A specialized tool for gauging the popularity of content on various social media platforms and identifying influential figures in specific niches.
• ContentGems: A content curation platform designed to help you discover and share articles and blog posts that resonate with your target audience.
• Google Trends: A free tool offering insights into the popularity trends of search terms over time, allowing for a deeper understanding of topic seasonality and trends.



Screenshot: Google Trends

Pinterest Tools to Post/Re-post and Schedule Pins

• Buffer: A comprehensive social media management platform enabling users to schedule and publish posts across various channels seamlessly.
• Pallyy: A robust social media marketing tool aimed at helping users manage and automate their social media activities across multiple platforms.
• CoSchedule: A dedicated marketing calendar tool for streamlining the planning, organization, and execution of your content marketing strategies.
• Fan Page Robot: An automation tool for social media that not only schedules content but also manages user engagement and helps grow follower counts across multiple platforms.
• SocialBee: A feature-rich social media management tool that facilitates the scheduling and publishing of content, audience engagement, and the overall growth of your social media presence.
• Hootsuite: A versatile social media management platform offering features to manage, schedule, and analyze social media accounts, all from a unified dashboard.



Screenshot: Hootsuite
• PromoRepublic: A robust social media marketing platform featuring a suite of tools for content creation, scheduling, and analytics, aimed at helping users manage and expand their social media presence effectively.
• Later.com: A specialized Instagram marketing platform that allows for visual planning, scheduling, and analytics of Instagram posts to optimize user engagement and reach.
• PinPinterest: A dedicated Pinterest marketing tool designed for automating pinning, liking, and following activities, along with providing insightful analytics.
• Sendible: A comprehensive social media management platform tailored for businesses, offering features for scheduling, publishing, and monitoring content across multiple social media channels.
• SocialPilot: A versatile social media scheduling and analytics platform, ideal for managing multiple accounts and assessing content performance metrics.
• Sprout Social: An all-in-one social media management and analytics platform, enabling users to monitor, engage, and analyze interactions with their audience across different social media platforms.
• Tailwind: A dual-purpose social media scheduling and analytics platform, specifically designed for Pinterest and Instagram, aimed at increasing reach, audience growth, and performance measurement.



Screenshot: Tailwind

Pinterest Tools to Grow & Manage Followers

• Gleam: A comprehensive marketing platform equipped to run a variety of campaigns such as contests, rewards, and email opt-ins, with the aim of business growth.
• SweepWidget: A user-friendly platform designed for creating and running an array of promotional campaigns like giveaways and contests, either on websites or social media channels.
• Loop88: An influencer marketing platform that serves as an intermediary between brands and social media influencers, facilitating promotions of products or services.
• MiloTree: A sophisticated popup tool designed to enhance your social media presence, email subscriptions, and sales via customizable website popups.



Screenshot: MiloTree
• Ninja Partner: A dynamic affiliate marketing platform facilitating the creation and management of personalized affiliate programs to amplify traffic and business sales.
• Pinterest Widget Builder: A dedicated widget creation tool allowing users to display Pinterest pins seamlessly on their websites or blogs, promoting increased engagement and followers.
• Rafflecopter: A versatile giveaway management tool that offers the capability to organize online giveaways, contests, and sweepstakes, effectively promoting brands or products.



Screenshot: Rafflecopter
• Shareaholic: A content-centric marketing platform aimed at optimizing website traffic, user engagement, and social shares through custom social sharing buttons and related content suggestions.
• Tailwind SmartLoop: A standout feature of Tailwind, enabling the automation of Pinterest marketing by looping top-performing pins to boost engagement and drive traffic.
• Tailwind Tribes: A community-oriented platform within Tailwind where users collaborate to share Pinterest content, enhancing overall reach and engagement.
• Votigo: A comprehensive social media marketing platform that offers functionalities to craft and execute social media contests, sweepstakes, and promotional campaigns.
• WiseStamp: A professional email signature generator tool, enabling users to design branded email signatures complete with clickable icons and links to various social media profiles.
• Wishpond: A holistic marketing platform offering features for creating landing pages, popups, and contests, aimed at transforming website visitors into potential leads and customers.

Pinterest Analytic Tools

• Cyfe: A unified business dashboard platform that centralizes monitoring and analytics, presenting all business data comprehensively in one accessible location.



Screenshot: Cyfe
• Mentionlytics: A comprehensive social media monitoring platform that diligently tracks brand mentions, competitive landscapes, and industry-specific trends, offering real-time notifications and in-depth analytics.
• PinGroupie: A specialized search engine focused on Pinterest group boards, enabling users to discover and participate in relevant groups to amplify their Pinterest engagement and reach.
• Pinterest Analytics: An official tool for dissecting your Pinterest profile, audience behavior, and content performance, furnishing valuable insights into optimization strategies.
• Quintly: A robust social media analytics service that equips you to track, analyze, and benchmark your multi-platform social media performance through meticulous reports and insights.



Screenshot: Quintly
• True Social Metrics: An analytics solution specifically designed for measuring the ROI of your social media activities, offering insights into key metrics like engagement, conversions, and revenue generation.

Miscellaneous Pinterest Tools

• Curalate: An AI-empowered marketing suite aimed at enabling brands to monetize their social content through visual analytics, automated content curation, and shoppable URLs.
• GS Pins for Pinterest: A dedicated WordPress plugin that offers a streamlined way to exhibit Pinterest pins on your website, either in a grid layout or as a curated portfolio.
• IFTTT for Pinterest: A versatile automation tool that facilitates task simplification on Pinterest through “recipes,” connecting different apps and services for an integrated social media marketing experience.



Screenshot: IFTTT for Pinterest
• Pinoculars Conversion Tracking: An adept conversion tracking solution that specializes in analyzing Pinterest-driven conversions, providing actionable insights into the ROI of your Pinterest marketing initiatives.
• Pinterest for Shopify: A specialized platform that empowers Shopify merchants to seamlessly sell their products through Pinterest. Features include the creation of shoppable pins, promotional campaign management, and performance analytics.
• Rich Pins Validator: A dedicated tool for Pinterest that validates the integrity of your rich pins, ensuring they display accurate information for an enhanced user experience.
• Social Share Icons: A user-friendly WordPress plugin that incorporates social media sharing icons onto your website, facilitating easy content sharing for your visitors.



Screenshot: Social Share Icons
• Woobox’s Pinterest Tab: A custom tool that allows for the integration of personalized Pinterest tabs onto Facebook pages, aimed at promoting your Pinterest profile and boosting follower count.
• Zapier for Pinterest: An automation tool offering “Zaps” to streamline Pinterest activities by connecting various apps and services, enhancing the efficiency of your social media marketing campaigns.
• Zotabox’s Social Sharing Buttons: A Shopify-specific plugin that introduces social sharing buttons to your e-commerce site, simplifying the process for visitors to share your products across social media platforms.
• Tasty Pins: A WordPress plugin designed for Pinterest marketing optimization, offering features like alt text inclusion, detailed descriptions, and the ability to add hidden, Pinterest-specific images to your site.



Screenshot: Tasty Pins

The post 80 Pinterest Tools for Almost Everything appeared first on Hongkiat.

But the videos uploaded on TikTok are superimposed with a TikTok watermark which doesn’t look nice when you’re posting your content on other platforms. Well, this post will tell you how to remove the TikTok watermark from your videos for posting on other platforms.

Instructions:

1. Go to the TikTok video you want to download, click the ellipsis icon, then select Copy Link icon.



2. Go to https://snaptik.app/, paste the URL in, and hit Download. Alternative sites to Snaptik: tiktokdownload.online, tikmate, and savett.cc.



3. That’s it. The downloaded video will have no watermark imposed.

The post How to Remove TikTok Watermark appeared first on Hongkiat.

While you can still dislike a video, you will not be able to see the total count for dislikes unless you are the creator of the video.

However, if you are curious to know just how many dislikes a video garners, there are some YouTube tricks that make this possible. And in this post, we will be discussing a few of them.

1. Return YouTube Dislike

Return YouTube Dislike is a Chrome extension that helps you show the dislike count on a video. All you need to do is, install the extension on your Chrome browser, visit any video on YouTube, and you should be able to see the dislikes count once again.

This plugin also works on Firefox, Edge, Opera, and Brave.

The data may not be accurate

The Return YouTube Dislike extension works in a way that it estimates the number of dislikes based on cached or previous data as well as the behavior of the extension users.

This means that the estimate of the number of dislikes is not completely accurate, but the overall ratio might be.

Moreover, all users help the extension in deriving the ratio of dislikes which also means that the developers behind the Return YouTube Dislike extension are gathering the data on your video views. So if you have data privacy concerns, think twice before installing it.

2. YouTube Dislike Viewer

You can also view any YouTube video’s dislike count without installing anything. The “YouTube Dislike Viewer” website lets you do just that right on the browser.

All you need to do is paste in the YouTube video’s URL, hit the Get button, and the dislike count will be shown to you.

The site also highlights for users that the results are estimated only, and it may not work well with some YouTube videos owing to their settings.

3. Wikipedia

If you are just curious to know the videos that get the most dislikes of all time, then you can check out this Wikipedia page. It lists the top 50 most (estimated) disliked videos on YouTube.

Do note that on December 13, 2021, YouTube removed public dislike counts on all videos. The number of dislikes just before they were hidden is shown in the table on this page, taken from the night of December 12, 2021.

The post How to Restore Dislike Count on YouTube Again appeared first on Hongkiat.

This good-quality copy of TikTok from Mark Zuckerberg is becoming a real game-changer nowadays. Here are some of the reasons why you should start shooting your Reels:

1. The previous prominent Instagram feature — Stories — became popular quickly because it shows your personality in the natural environment. Stories help you be closer to your audience and build a long-term relationship with your followers.
2. Instagram Posts and Carousels are great tools to showcase your professional content and convert viewers and followers into clients.
3. But the major problem with all previous formats (which existed before Reels) was gaining new visitors. You can either add many hashtags to your posts (and get 1-2 new followers) or set up a Facebook Ad campaign to show your profile to your target audience.
4. Instagram Reels is this missing piece of the puzzle, helping you gain a new audience for free and convert it into followers and clients.

In 2021 I spent about $3000 and 12 months to get 2500 live followers using Facebook Ads. In 2022 I’ve spent $0 and 1 month to get 9000 more people. That’s the key idea of using Instagram Reels to promote your professional blog and get new clients in 2022.

Let me tell you more about the steps I accomplished to build the working flow of lead generation for design.

1. Define Your Niche

The first thing you need to do is to find your niche. The problem here is the balance — between general and specific. If you are a designer, you shouldn’t focus on all types of design at once.

Don’t worry about limiting your potential followers base. Even if you post about UX Research, you will find your audience and clients.

The opposite problem is being too specific.

For instance, if you’re publishing Reels only about UX Research in FoodTech companies, you significantly decrease the total number of viewers.

Try to find a perfect balance.

2. Analyze What Users Love

This part of the plan looks the most relaxing to me. You need to watch tons of Reels and TikTok videos focusing on their virality and analytics. Try to find niche-related videos and analyze them.

You can even build a Google Sheet to calculate the different topics’ engagement rates (amount of likes and comments/total amount of views).

I coded a simple Python script parsing other designers’ Reels and getting their views, likes, comments, and followers statistics. And here are some insights I got so far:

1. The most viral topics in UX Design Reels are Figma tutorials, New tools overviews, and Collections of Icons, Fonts, and Illustrations. Junior Designers love this free and eye-catching stuff.
2. The day of the week and time of publication have zero impact on the Reels’ views and interactions.
3. The most popular videos are usually the ones that are shared and/or saved actively. The more users save your Reels, the more views you get.
4. Generate your content ideas.

Content research is not only about analytics and data. While looking through other users’ videos, you can save the most interesting and engaging ones from replicating them in the future.

Yep, you heard it right — replicate!

Copying, in this case, doesn’t mean plagiarism. You should at least reshoot the video yourself. At most — add your voice-over, add more details and share your professional opinion.

3. Organize Your Insights

I prefer to use the app called Things. It’s made to organize your daily tasks and reminders. You can easily split your ideas into categories, add tags and schedule them on specific dates.

My personal love is Home Screen Widget and integration with the Apple Shortcuts app. I can add it to the necessary folder whenever I have a new idea — quick and easy. A few days later, when I wake up, I can easily understand which one to shoot or edit today.

By the way, about shooting…

4. Record and Edit Your Video

When you have a list of Reels ideas, it’s time to shoot. Instagram Reels or TikToks are not always about you staying in front of the camera. Most of my videos are just screen recordings with voice-over added on editing. But there are still some shots that may improve your engagement:

Start With a Hook

Find a catching title for your Reel and show it in the first 2 to 3 seconds. Most of my videos start with something like:

• “Let me show you how to design an interactive button in one minute“,
• “Check out this new insane tool for web designers“,
• “Here are Top 3 illustrations packs for UX Design“.

Have you got the main idea? You should find a title that can catch viewers’ attention and keep it till the end of your Reel.

Share The Value

What is the easiest way to get more saves, likes, and comments under your Reel? Make it valuable. Make it so useful that the user will want to save it to return later.

4-5% saves is an excellent result. I usually love seeing it 2x greater than likes.

One of the most popular Reels in my account was about filling Figma mock-ups with real data using the Google Sheets Sync plugin. The users’ reaction was crazy: “Magic!“, “How is it possible?“, “Why haven’t I heard about it yet!?“.

Call to Action

Don’t forget about the Call to Action at the end of your video. Remember? Views and likes are nothing if they are not converting into followers (and clients then). Add a simple “Follow me for more design tips” at the end. That will be enough to see some results.

5. Test, Iterate, Test Again

Posting Reels is almost about building complex websites or platforms. That’s where your designer’s skills come to the stage. After about 5-10 published Reels, you can start analyzing and modifying your content. Check it out:

1. You start with an MVP — your first set of videos with random ideas.
2. When MVP is ready, you start getting the first users — your viewers.
3. You can track quantitative metrics — engagement rates and views-to-followers conversion as soon as you get views.
4. You also start receiving qualitative feedback — direct messages and comments.
5. Based on the data you generate hypothesis: which other Reels ideas should you use to increase the engagement and keep growing?
6. You create new content, analyze it and get new insights.

As soon as you understand your audience’s needs and interests, you will start growing faster. Most importantly, your results will get more predictable with every new video.

6. Convert Visitors into Followers and Clients

Let’s imagine that your Reels are getting viral. What’s next? If you use Call to Action properly, random Instagram viewers will more likely visit your page. Some of them want to follow you after only one video. Others may want to see other examples of your content.

In this case, the better your profile is prepared, the higher conversion into followers you will get. There are three main pieces of a good Instagram page:

• Profile picture.
• Profile bio.
• Other posts in your profile.

The last piece I didn’t mention yet is the profile link. This link is the only way to convert visitors and followers into paying clients. You can add your website or use services Linktree to show multiple links at once.

To warm up your potential clients, use other post formats on Instagram. Carousels (if they are designed well) can be a great way to demonstrate your expertise and give your followers knowledge. Stories can help you build a closer relationship with your audience and tell more about your lifestyle.

7. Don’t Give Up on This Long-term Game

Working with Instagram Reels is infinite highs and lows. Especially if you post new Reels every day. Some of them may go viral in an hour. Others can freeze first and grow up later. There will also be posts that don’t get views at all. The main thing you should remember — is it’s normal.

Don’t let the algorithms make you upset or ruin your plans. I promise — if you do the research and prepare the content for the next 3-4 weeks, you will see tremendous results. That’s how it works.

There was a day when I woke up, looked back on all my Reels for the last five days, and realized they didn’t work that well. First, I decided to give up and get back to the paid Facebook Ads. But then I gave it another try, and everything worked again. Stay stubborn and do your business.

As I mentioned before, Instagram Reels is a game-changer. The sooner you master it, the larger piece of the target audience you get. Instagram is a highly competitive platform. This time, you are not allowed to miss this growing trend. Good luck!

The post Instagram Reels for Designers – How I Grew 4x in One Month appeared first on Hongkiat.

You know well that random social media tactics lead to random results. If you want to be successful, you need a solid strategy. According to Sprout Social, 63% of online marketers prove the importance of discussing the ROI of marketing campaigns and managing marketing expenses for each project.

This is where the right tools can become the best friends for social media marketers. Numbers don’t lie, as the story goes. Moreover, you can identify content trends and learn about your customers, competitors, and your main strategy beyond the numbers.

In this article, you will find some of the best tools to track your social media performance.

1. ClickUp

ClickUp is a great cloud-based project management tool that lets you combine everything into one place. It offers task-settings functions, status alerts, whiteboards, project updates, calendars, docs, chat, and an inbox to manage your social media activities.

Along with fully customizable and proprietary features, the tool works for teams of all sizes and industries to better alight workflows around social media goals.

ClickUp includes 15+ customizable views to visualize your tasks, timelines, and team structure that you can save and share with anyone. Besides the standard view options (List, Gantt, Calendar, Board, and Box Views), you can use Mind Map, Activity, and Workload View options to plan, visualize, and organize your social projects.

With ClickUp, you can easily create, customize, and share reports with others. It also gives more insight into your team’s performance, shows each team member’s schedules, and tracks the progress of each project.

Key features of ClickUp:

• Effortless collaboration and communication solutions.
• High customization options.
• Multiple views.
• Easy time tracking.
• Advanced reporting capabilities.
• Well-functioning mobile app.
• Affordable pricing.

Pricing:

ClickUp offers a free plan for personal use and beginners to manage projects with limited file storage of around 100 MB. The Unlimited Plan starts at $5 per member per month.

Business and Business Plus plans for large teams with more advanced and exclusive features like turndown charts, custom role generation, priority support, API, and more. Enterprises should contact the Sales team for more details.

2. InVideo

InVideo is a powerful web-based video editing tool. It is the simplest, quickest, and most versatile way to create videos on Android, iOS, and the web.

This all-in-one online video editing tool provides 5000+ pre-made templates and has capabilities like audio controls, voice-over, stock music, transitions, and 8 million+ stock content.

With InVideo’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface, making a video is simple, even if you have no prior knowledge of video editing. InVideo is a favorite option for millions of professional video editors worldwide because of features like configurable motion graphic components, text, icons, shapes, effects, transitions, and color correction.

Key features of InVideo:

• Easy drag and drop editor.
• 5000+ customizable video templates.
• 8M+ iStock media library.
• Video creation in 70+ languages and more.
• Convert text to video.
• Add voice-overs.
• Wide range of filters and overlays.
• Smooth & trendy transitions.

Pricing:

InVideo offers a free version with limited access. The paid plans start at $15 /month when you pay yearly. If you pay monthly, it will cost $30/month.

3. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is one of the top tools for exploring, analyzing, and monitoring your content. Founded in 2012, it provides the robust content research and performance insights you need.

You can see what’s trending now, discover common questions and keywords, find out how many links lead to your content, and identify the most famous content types.

BuzzSumo shows which of your pages received the most engagement, including Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and Pinterest shares. You can also find out who shares competitors’ content and compare your content performance on social media against your competitors. You can easily use these insights to fine-tune future content and power your brand.

BuzzSumo is great for researching and generating content ideas for your social media channels. It’s the best match for the brands that bring a focus on the content marketing strategy.

Key features of BuzzSumo:

• Advanced data filters.
• Real-time trending content discovery.
• Competitor alerts.
• Comprehensive social media analytics.
• Personalized interface.
• Social media content insights.
• Easy segmentation of influencers.

Pricing:

Buzzsumo offers a free version with limited access up to 10 content searches per month. The paid plans start at $79/month when you pay yearly. If you pay monthly, it will cost $99/month after a 30-day free trial.

4. Affable

Affable is a great influencer marketing platform for brands and agencies. Due to its data-driven artificial intelligence, you can find the most effective and relevant influencers for your social media campaigns and connect with those who resonate with your target audience the most.

This tool can search for influencers’ audience demographics, including gender, age, location, and many more. The Content Discovery section allows you to find specific content on YouTube or Instagram that you want for your brand. It will help you reach out to the right influencers and save time.

Built as an end-to-end platform, Affable makes it possible to manage all influencer routines, from finding to building relationships with them in one place. Once you connect with the influencers, you can track how successfully they engage with your customers and identify how well your competitors are doing in your field.

Key features of Affable:

• Sentiment analysis.
• Exclusion search.
• Image recognition.
• Track ongoing influencer trends.
• Compare your influencer performances against competitors.
• Create and export reports about the Social Metrics.

Pricing:

Affable offers a 14-day free trial to help you understand the platform’s best features. The personal plan offers ten free credits, and every additional credit costs $1 per credit. The monthly plan costs $500 per month.

10. SE Ranking

SE Ranking is a powerful all-in-one marketing software that shows hidden opportunities, consolidates multiple social campaigns, and tracks the performance of your content performance. It provides content auditing, lead generation, topic research, and marketing plan within one platform.

Its Competitor Research feature helps you find the best-performing content on social media and “borrow” these content ideas to improve your social media strategy.

You can use SE Ranking to create social media posts based on your findings and rank better in social search results. You can include keywords in your YouTube titles or tweets to improve the visibility on these channels.

Key features of SE Ranking:

• Advanced topic research.
• Accurate keyword ranking data.
• Backlink checker.
• Competitive research.
• Comprehensive content audit.
• Detailed SEO progress reports.
• White Label.
• Marketing and SEO plan.

Pricing:

SE Ranking offers a subscription-based pricing model with a 14-day free trial for new customers. It starts from $31/month to $719/month if you pay annually. Once you get a subscription, you will get full access to the SE Ranking mobile app.

6. Facebook Premier

Source: socialmediaexaminer.com

Facebook Premiere is the next generation of professional live video presentations. This feature allows business pages to upload and publish pre-recorded video content without the stress of hosting a live broadcast. It will enable you to launch a new product, share details about a show, increase sales, and more. 

Facebook Premiere shows videos not only in the news feed and on your page but also distribute them on Facebook Watch to let you reach a wider audience. Users can instantly react to the video content in real-time like any live video. I mean, you can interact with viewers in the comments within the broadcast.

Facebook Premiere is an excellent alternative to Facebook Live. It helps you have a significant Facebook presence, create video content ahead of time, and encourage users to follow and engage with it. The tool is excellent for episodic content and announcements.

Key features of Facebook Premiere:

• Interaction from viewers during the broadcasting.
• Easy setup.
• Send reminders with notifications.
• Get distribution on Facebook Watch.
• Countdown clock for when your video will go live.

Pricing:

Facebook Premiere is free to use and available to all Facebook Pages.

7. Keyhole

Keyhole is one of the top tools to measure and improve the impact of social media posts. It has many valuable features, including social listening, competitor analysis, sentiment analysis, social reporting, and post-performance.

One vital feature of Keyhole is tracking hashtags, keywords, and URLs. Its analytical dashboard shows the most popular hashtags relevant to your campaign and identifies areas for improvement. The tool displays real-time updates to make necessary changes.

Another track of information is influencer marketing. It provides information on your competitor and tracks the progress of your influencer marketing campaigns. It shows raw numbers, and you can determine which influencers get the best results. It is valuable for those who have a lot of influencers.

Key features of Keyhole:

• Real-time tracking of campaigns, keywords, and hashtags.
• Influencer identification.
• Flexible searches.
• Custom alerts.
• Powerful analytics.
• Historic usage data.
• User-friendly interface.

Pricing:

Keyhole offers a free trial and the option to book a personalized demo, but it doesn’t provide pricing plans. Just fill in the form and custom pricing for your business to start with Keyhole.

8. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a fantastic free tool to monitor social media progress and performance. The tool gives a wealth of insights about your content, your website, and its visitors from social media. Once you add the tool to your social media analytics strategy, you can track the following things:

• Find which social media channels drive the most traffic
• Measure the ROI of your social media campaigns
• Collect social referral data where visitors are coming to your website using social share buttons;
• Discover what types of content work best with each social network;
• See how many sales conversions you get from social media;
• Track the total traffic to your best content and traffic sources.

With this data, you will maximize social media campaigns and enhance your marketing strategies in the long run.

Pricing:

Google Analytics is free and suitable for small and medium-sized businesses, including a wide range of features to grow your business. Google Analytics Premium, designed for enterprises and companies with high traffic volume, will cost $150 000 per year.

9. NapoleonCat

NapoleonCat is a powerful social media engagement tool to help you manage all your social media profiles in one place. It includes everything from scheduling and publishing operations to conversion tracking and reporting.

The tool will take the weight off your shoulders by incorporating some social media automation tools in one without paying additional fees.

The best thing about NapoleonCat is its Social Inbox feature which is a great time saver for businesses to monitor their brands on social media. You can view all the comments, messages, and reviews within one dashboard and instantly respond to them on board.

If you run different locations on Google My Business, this feature will be a must-have to manage all the reviews from all locations.

Key features of NapoleonCat:

• Single Social Media Inbox.
• Social media analytics.
• Auto-moderation.
• Competitive and comparative analysis.
• Custom reports.
• Great customer service.

Pricing:

NapoleonCat includes a 14-day free trial to test all the features. Otherwise, you can design your perfect plan and pay only for what you use. The Standard plan costs $31/month per user.

10. Planable

Planable is another excellent option to streamline content-related processes, from planning and publishing content on social media to collaboration and approval. With its user-friendly interface, you can easily view how social media posts will look once they get published, set up schedules, and push them to multiple channels.

The best thing about Planable is collaborating on client projects and content and getting quick client approval. It works great for large teams and different stakeholders. You can create separate client workspaces to manage other clients and keep your interface organized and accessible.

Planable includes multiple timeline views to choose from. You can work with calendar, feed, list, or grid views to efficiently handle your content timelines. The Label feature lets you filter all posts by the right category and see the history of your activities.

Its collaboration system allows teams to leave and share feedback in-app using replies and comments next to the post.

Key features of Planable:

• Easy collaboration option.
• Multiple timeline views.
• Mobile app.
• Guest sharing.
• Separate workspaces.
• Flexible publishing.
• One-click approvals.
• Unlimited storage.

Pricing:

Planable offers to create the first 50 posts for free and unlimited experience (pages, users, and workspaces). The paid plan starts from $13 per user a month to create a high volume of social media content each day. The Enterprise plan is available for large social media teams, and get in touch with them to find out an exact price point.

Wrapping up

I’ve reached the end of my top 11 tools to increase your social media performance. Don’t be afraid to try any of the above tools, especially considering they all have free trials.

With the right tools, you will clearly understand your social media results and ensure you’re taking the right time with your strategy.

The post 10 Tools to Improve Your Social Media Performance appeared first on Hongkiat.

So we bring today a list of apps that can help you do more with your LinkedIn profile. The list includes everything from knowledge builders and business development tools to networking apps, powerful search engines, and free templates to help you better approach a potential client. Let’s jump right in.

Official LinkedIn Apps

Linkedin (Google Play)

LinkedIn for Android is the most popular social media platform for businesses and professionals. You can post jobs, search for jobs, check out salary listings, get referrals, promote your business, and expand your professional network. There are also guides and insights for professional development.

Linkedin (iOS)

The iOS app for LinkedIn gives you all the features of the website. Being an all-rounder platform for both job professionals, it gives a great many options for job seekers and recruiters alike. You can also find a lot of material on professional development and improving your business and career.

Linkedin Chrome Extension

Google Chrome offers a useful browser extension for LinkedIn. The extension gives you notifications of new activity. Plus, you can go directly to the website with just one click.

3rd-party LinkedIn Apps

Dux-Soup LinkedIn Automation

Dux-Soup is a LinkedIn automation tool that allows you to engage with potential clients and interested parties through engaging messages. You can use it to send personalized connection requests and direct messages on LinkedIn.

There is also an option to filter the search results of potential clients, find ideal LinkedIn prospects, and hyper-target your prospects. Plus, it can seamlessly integrate with your CRM platform.

Hunter.io

As the name says, Hunter is a tool to find the email addresses of your potential clients or just about anyone in any professional field. You can find the person by their names or email addresses, and it will give you the most authentic and verifiable results.

Hunter also features an email verifier that helps you check any email address so you can send emails to the right people. Moreover, it adheres to the data transparency policy as every email they share has public sources.

LeadGibbon

Lead Gibbon is a useful extension for LinkedIn that is ideal for business developers, sales, and marketing professionals. With this tool, you can find the correct email addresses of prospected clients through the Sales Navigator.

Lead Gibbon has a huge lead database of email addresses from various industries and professional fields. Also, it gets integrated with your favorite CRM in minutes.

Wiza

Wiza is your answer to a tool that collects information on potential clients and helps you build your network. Ideal for both recruiters and sales professionals, it helps you create a mailing list of ideal profiles so you can connect with them at your own pace.

Through its Chrome extension, Wiza scrapes hundreds of prospects from LinkedIn as real-time data in one go. You can add new/ accurate people’s emails to your list and export the data as a spreadsheet.

Linked Helper

LinkedIn Helper is a software that takes the hassle out of LinkedIn B2B marketing and promotion. This all-rounder tool takes care of sending personalized messages to prospects, sending invites to 2nd and 3rd-level contacts, and auto-responding to your connections.

It also features a built-in CRM to help you manage your contacts and their information or you can integrate it with a third-party CRM of your choice.

eLink Pro Marketing

eLink is a marketing tool for LinkedIn. As a browser extension, the tool views around 5000 LinkedIn profiles on your behalf, and these people are notified that their profiles have been viewed. As a result, most of these people visit back your profile and can be connected with potential clients.

You can also download a list of potential clients directly to Excel. A good number of look-backs that you receive with eLink can potentially engage with your business, thus giving you solid leads.

The post 10 LinkedIn Apps You Need to Know appeared first on Hongkiat.