Are you looking to use social media more strategically? Do you know what your Facebook page looks like to other people or how to create a new graphic for your FB cover image? Want to use a more creative font for your WordPress website than the basic ones that are included in a standard WP installation? Find out more about these topics in this week’s #FridayFinds.
16 Strategies for Creating Content that Will be Shared
This article comes from one of my favorite resources, WebsiteMagazine.com. In her post, Create Social Posts that Get Clicks, Allison Howen shares 16-tips for building your brand and generating engagement online. This is not a simple list of ideas that has been regurgitated one more time. Instead, Allison supports her suggestions with links to resources including: Buffer, Facebook, HubSpot, SimplyMeasured and Twitter. Check it out to learn interesting stats like “tweets with adverbs and verbs receive higher CTRs than tweets with more nouns and adjectives”. She also includes examples of successful strategies from big brands like TMZ, Skittles, Zappos Couture and Sephora.
What Your Facebook Page Looks Like to Others:
Ever wonder what your Facebook page looks like to other people? Kimberly Castleberry’s tutorial How To View Your Facebook Profile As Someone Else (Or As The Public Does) on Just-Ask-Kim.com will show you how to find out. In her article, Kim also shares her advice on which items you should be checking. Kim also talks about how you can use custom lists to control the content that people see.
Note: If you use the “View As” tool, Facebook will pop up this reminder ““Remember: Things you hide from your timeline still appear in news feed, search, and other places on Facebook.”
How to Create a Custom Facebook Cover:
Speaking of Facebook, you don’t have to be a graphic designer or own a copy of Photoshop to be able to create a compelling image for your Facebook page. In her article How to Create a Custom Facebook Cover Image That Gets Noticed (Without Spending a Dime) on YourWriterPlatform.com, Kimberley Grabas shares tips on how to create a Facebook cover image that will get noticed. She also offers concrete suggestions on what you can include (such as a call-to-action). Be sure to scroll down to section #5, “Design Tips” to watch her “how-to” video using PicMonkey (a free online picture editor).
Spiff Up Your Website with Google Fonts
If you’re unhappy with the choice of fonts that you have available to choose from in WordPress, Google Web Fonts offers access to over 600 free open-source fonts to choose from. Not sure where to get started? Check out 10 Popular Google Web Fonts by Pete Prestipino on WebsiteMagagzine.com for 10 of the most popular ones.
Tip: If you’re not sure how to incorporate Google fonts into your WordPress site (and you’re willing to install one more plugin), WP Google Fonts may be the solution that you.
Over to You:
What are your thoughts? Did you find Allison Howen’s post on marketing strategies for social media insightful? Did you find the tutorials by Kim Castleberry and Kimberley Grabas helpful? Have you ever used Google fonts in a website design before? As always, we’d love to hear from you.
About Sherryl PerryWelcome! If you're looking for help building an Internet presence that fits your needs and works for you, you're in the right place. I blog common sense articles about WordPress, social media and SEO. My goal is to help small business owners and entrepreneurs understand their core business. Together, we can develop and implement business strategies that make sense to you.
Hi,
tweets with adverbs and verbs receive higher CTRs than tweets with more nouns and adjectives. This very new technique for me. I have just tweeted what I think including 3 hash (#) tags. and one URL. Now only got the interesting tip. I wish to try it on my next tweets. Thanks for sharing this
You’re welcome Oliver. Thanks for letting me know that you’re implementing a strategy for your tweets based on one of the statistics from Allison’s article. I’ve read before that tweets with proper punctuation get RT’d more too.
Sherryl Perry recently posted..Ways of Protecting Your ID on Social Media
Hi Sherryl,
In my opinion, the Google web fonts tip is the most interesting. This is something worth to try because I am already bored with WordPress fonts. WordPress editor is not so advanced and there are a lot of things I can’t to there. I know, it depends on the theme, too. However, using new, more attractive fonts can help you stand out from the crowd. This, of course, if the fonts can be seen by all visitors. The article must be checked to see exactly if it can solve this problem.
Have a wonderful day
Silviu recently posted..Clean and Optimize Your WordPress Database with WP Optimize
Google’s into Fonts now, they seem to be everywhere. Installing fonts can be tricky because everyone else won’t have those fonts on their systems or permissions for websites to display them.
I’m with you on Website Magazine Sherryl, I subscribed just before their official launch and I look forward to that delivery every month. It’s so cool that there’s a real (printed version) publication just for us.
Brian Hawkins recently posted..Our New About YOU Page
Brian,
I think you’re the first person I know who subscribes to Website Magazine. I have every copy that I’ve received. A lot of their content is evergreen. Thanks for dropping by and taking the time to leave a comment. I appreciate the feedback.
Sherryl Perry recently posted..4 eCommerce Marketing Channels You Should Use – Part 2
Hi Sherryl,
Best friday find ever.
Got to know many things about picmonkey.
Thanks alot mate.
Great suggestion about Google Fonts. Didn’t know it existed.
Was glad to note that I already do most of what Websitemagazine suggests and that my Facebook page works the way it should, according to Kimberly. Picmonkey I already downloaded, as you know.
Catarina recently posted..Who’s the CEO of Twitter?
Catarina,
That’s great that you’re already following most of the tips that Allison Howen suggests and that your Facebook settings are already in place. Thanks for dropping by. (I’ll try to be visiting blogs again soon.)
Hey Sherryl,
I did see Kim’s post, I forgot to check my profile. Thanks for reminding me 🙂
I also appreciate sharing the other two resources, especially the one regarding FB cover image. I have done that in the past, using Photoshop and PicMonkey (I love PicMonkey because of their great variety of fonts).
As for Google fonts, three of the theme license I have come with in-built support for Google fonts, so no problem there. But, thank you for sharing the plugin. I might go for a different theme for my upcoming blog 😀
Anyways, thank you for sharing the resources, Sherryl 🙂
Hi Jeevan,
Thanks for dropping by! I just started using PicMonkey myself. I have Photoshop installed on my desktop but when I’m blogging on my laptop, being able to use PicMonkey is a real timesaver.
That’s great that your theme supports Google fonts. I only use that plugin on one client site myself but I’m keeping it in mind for the future too.
Thanks for letting me know that you found the resources that I shared helpful.
Sherryl Perry recently posted..4 eCommerce Marketing Channels You Should Use – Part 1
I liked some of the points that Allison Howen makes. I really haven’t been putting the effort into the Facebook, but another thing to put on my list of things to do. As far as fonts go I think you have to be careful. I would stick with the most readable font which is Arial. I know it is nothing spectacular but if it is easier to read, you will have a better change of the viewer sticking around. The tread is going to a cleaner look and more like a newspaper.
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Arleen,
I agree with you that you don’t want to be too creative with fonts on your website especially for eCommerce sites like yours. The client that I’m working with who chose a Google font works with a graphic designer. She’s an author and the font is one piece of an overall rebranding effort.
Thanks for weighing in on this. I agree about your newspaper look too.
Sherryl Perry recently posted..Treat Your Blog Like a Newspaper
Sherryl — I checked out my Facebook page and I like the way it looks to readers. It’s simple and gets the job done for me. I wasn’t aware of Allison Howen and enjoyed reading her tips. I haven’t used Google fonts because I didn’t know about them. I’m happy now with my font. I changed it about a year or so ago and I decided what works for the blogging gurus should work for me, so I told my webmaster to copy ProBlogger’s. Not very original?
Jeannette Paladino recently posted..Why You Should Edit the Headlines in Your LinkedIn Discussions
Jeannette,
The client that I use the Google font for is an author and it was very important to her that she had a distinctive font. I think for you and me, a simple easy to read font works the best. I think telling your webmaster to use the same font as another popular blogger is an excellent idea!
I’ve been tweeting Allison Howen’s posts for a while now. Today, I found her on Twitter and Google+ and I connected with her. Website Magazine is a favorite resource of mine. So much so, that I subscribe to the hard copy of their magazine. (A lot of their articles do not get shared online.)
Sherryl Perry recently posted..4 eCommerce Marketing Channels You Should Use – Part 2
PicMonkey has been my go-to easy image editor for quite some time. Thanks for mentioning the Google font plugin as it’s something I’ll be sure to look into.
Jeri recently posted..Banned Books Week Sept 22-28
Thanks for letting us know Jeri. I’ve always used Photoshop but lately I’ve found myself needing to resize and compress images for my blog posts when I’m working on my laptop. I recently started using PicMonkey to do this and I love it!
I’m glad you like the Google font plugin. There may be others that do the same thing. That’s the one that I turned to. I will mention that it hasn’t been updated in a few months. So, I would keep an eye on it.
Thanks for the shout out, Sherryl! I appreciate you including my post in such a useful roundup of resources! 🙂
You’re very welcome Kimberley. I’m glad that I discovered your blog this week and it’s nice to connect with you on some of the social networking sites.
Sherryl Perry recently posted..4 Tips to Creating Successful Google AdWord Pay Per Click PPC Ads
Hi Sherryl
I found Kim’s post really useful as I’d no idea you could look at your Facebook page as others would see it.
I haven’t installed Google fonts on my blog as yet. I think I’d struggle with some many fonts!
The custom Facebook Cover article looks interesting, as does the creating interesting social posts one. I’ll be sure to bookmark them so I can read them later!
Thank you for sharing and have a great weekend.
Tim
Tim Bonner recently posted..Choosing The Right Social Media Platform For Your Business – Facebook, Plus, Twitter or Linkedin?
Hi Tim,
Kim is a great resource. She writes firsthand about using custom lists on Facebook. I’m on several of her lists and you can tell that she has them well defined. (I’ve let my custom lists get a little out of control an there’s a lot of overlap that I need to weed out.)
I’m perfectly happy with the default fonts for this blog but it’s good to have access to more creative fonts in the future.
Thanks so much for dropping by and joining the conversation!
Sherryl Perry recently posted..4 eCommerce Marketing Channels You Should Use – Part 1
I really liked how to view my Facebook page as other see it was helpful. I just did it and it was cool. I actually liked how my page looked. That was a small win.
The 16 tip is full of great information. I know some of it. Nevertheless, I will need to take some time to digest it to really gain the true benefit of all it has to offer.
That was cool to know that there are alternative to the WordPress fonts. I know that will come be useful for me in the future when I go through an theme switch on my site.
Have an awesome weekend Sherryl, 🙂
Susan P Cooper recently posted..Kaleidoscope Mind: Musing
Hi Susan,
Thanks for dropping by and sharing your thoughts with me. (I especially appreciate your feedback on this series.) One of my clients worked with a designer who provided me with a Google font. Finding that plugin saved me a lot of time.
You have an awesome weekend too!