Social Media Archives - Yellow Dog Consulting

3 Marketing Updates You May Need to Check In On

05.15.2019 by Elizabeth // Leave a Comment

This morning I was thrilled (please note the dripping sarcasm) to see that Mailchimp has decided to completely restructure their billing and their plan offerings. The good news if you already have an account – you’re safe. But if you need to move to a paid plan (which based on what your automation and list needs are, you might) you are going to probably pay more. I’ve seen a few changes to marketing technology lately and I wanted to share 3 marketing changes that you may want to check in on for your business.

LinkedIn Showcase Pages – I was talking with a client today about how great the LinkedIn Showcase pages are as a compliment to your business page. Then I clicked on mine to show her and the page was in need of a major update. SO – if you’ve had a business page setup on LinkedIn and added featured pages for specific products – it’s time to jump over and make sure it still looks as good as you hoped!
Google My Business – With Google+ gone what’s a small business owner to do to promote their content on Google? Luckily if you have a Google My Business Page setup (and if you don’t stop now and do that first) you can add a post to your account. With G+ you could schedule these out like other social media posts, but with Google My Business you have to manually go in to add in a post. However, I appreciate that GMB will alert you when your post is about to expire so you can go in and post something new. Which you should…
Mailchimp’s Update – If you have Mailchimp take a look at the email they sent out today with their updated terms of use and their new snazzy pricing structure. Reminder – if you already have an account – you’re safe!

Software and marketing tools are constantly changing. These are 3 that just happened to be talking about TODAY that I thought I’d make sure you’re aware of. What software has changed recently that small business owners need to be aware of? Please share in the comments…

5 Tasks to Add to Your Blog Post Checklist

03.13.2019 by Elizabeth // Leave a Comment

The other day while chatting with a client she asked if I have a checklist for blogging. I sure didn’t (well, I do in pieces in my head) so I decided we should create one.

A few years ago I wrote about how 40% of my traffic comes from social media – but let’s update that for 2019…

Linktree – If you’re using Instagram as part of your social media then you know that you only get ONE URL in your bio. Which is DUMB. With Linktree you create a page that has all your relevant links to your recent blog posts and any other links you reference in your Instagram. Check mine out…
Buffer – you need a social media sharing tool to help keep you sane. I pay for Buffer and it’s awesome. I still mostly stick to this social media sharing schedule from this post a few years ago. Lately I have been monitoring how many tweets are scheduled/work/promo and how many are LIVE me. Evaluate your social media regularly to make sure you aren’t talking AT your audience but are talking to and with your audience.
Add to your Newsletter – each month in my newsletter I feature a few of my latest blog posts. It’s a great way to get some additional exposure to folks who many not follow my blog.
Reference Your Posts – a lot of my blog posts (this one included) are written so I can easily share my recommendations down the road without having to write this all out again. Make sure if you took the time to write a helpful blog post that you’re sharing it with your clients or a specific audience when the time comes. I was on a group call last week where we ended up talking about a topic I have written a few posts about so I was able to share those posts and get new eyes on my website.
Add to Google My Business – Now that G+ is going away don’t forget that you can add a post to your Google My Business page! It expires in time but once you start posting you get a heads up – which might even prompt you to write another post!

What other behind the scenes tasks do you do on your blog?

Guest Post: Goodbye Google+

02.06.2019 by Elizabeth // Leave a Comment

Today’s guest post is from Danielle Isbell at Odd Dog Media. Whenever I have an SEO/search/web question Odd Dog is my first call. When this email from Google came out last week I immediately reached out and asked what I needed to worry about, if anything, and thought you might appreciate that information too!

Have you received an email with this subject line?

[ACTION REQUIRED] Important changes to Google+ and impact on G Suite customers.
(read the whole email notification that was sent out here.)

You may have already heard the consumer end of Google+ is going away, but what does this email you received mean? And what’s with the unhelpful, screaming emails, Google?!

Tldr; If you are using Google+ features like blogger commenting / communities / Google+ Pages / Google+ Single Sign-in, then these features are going away. If you’re not sure if you’re using them, you’re probably not (hardly anyone does) and you’re probably fine and don’t need to take any action at all.

Google announced in October of 2018 it would be shutting down Google+, which was Google’s attempt at creating a social network to rival Facebook. If you have a Gmail account, or if your company uses Google for its email, then you most likely have a Google+ profile whether you used it or not. Think of Google+ as an App for Google Email accounts that was always there, just nobody really used it.

Google+ is shutting down in part because it never really took off in a huge way like other social platforms, but also because of a data breach that happened via Google+. Google announced in December that the entire platform would be going away on April 2nd, 2019.

In shutting down Google+, it will have different repercussions for businesses as you may be using some Google+ business features.

What does that mean for businesses who use Google Suite for email?

(If you aren’t sure if your company uses Google Suite, you can check here.)

Google is shutting down the consumer side of Google+, so that means the upcoming changes will primarily affect how your company interacts with consumer content through Google+.

Website and Blog Commenting

The consumer side of Google+ includes sites that use Google+ as their commenting service, much like Disqus. If you use Blogger as your blogging platform, the commenting feature was removed February 4th, 2019 and will be removed from other websites using this feature by March 7th, 2019.

For Google Suite users, they will still be able to view the comments they made in their Google+ activity log. We assume that means they are only viewable until April 2nd when the whole sha-bang gets shut down.

Communities

Google Communities were Facebook groups before Facebook groups became a thing.
Because all Google+ consumer account content will be deleted starting April 2nd, 2019, this will impact any communities your organization runs outside your domain that aren’t owned by at least one GSuite user.
Community owners and moderators have until April 2nd to download any community data they wish to save. See more about downloading your Google+ data here.

Google+ Sign-in

If your business has any apps or sign-in portals where people can sign in with their Google+ account, this will be phased out throughout February 2019.

Google+ Pages

Google+ Pages are different than your Google My Business listing. If you created a Google+ page for your business, make sure you download and save any images or posts you want to keep. These will all be disappearing as well.
You can choose to delete your account or just wait for Google to delete it for you, it’s up to you. In the unlikely event you had been spending any energy at all creating content for this platform, consider putting all of that effort into Google Posts on your Google My Business listing instead.

Will the Google+ shut down impact your business SEO?

It shouldn’t. Because this is a social site that never really gained any steam, and Google themselves are the ones shutting it down, any authority that may have been passed through this platform is probably inconsequential when it comes to your rankings.
If you’re a local business, focus on your Google My Business listing instead!

Looking for more updates about the shutdown? You can watch this page for a timeline of updates from Google as these features slowly shut off.

Meet Danielle Isbell, Odd Dog Media

Danielle has been in the Local Search game for over four years with Odd Dog Media. She wears a lot of hats at Odd Dog, working on search optimization (SEO), paid ads, social media, website design, and content creation for a wide range of local & regional businesses.

When she’s not optimizing GMB listings or websites for local search, she’s traveling, taking photos, and designing cool stuff.