This week on Sprout Social Insights we tackled guides for Facebook, Twitter, and small business to help you better reach your customers with the social media tools that make a difference.

Check out our articles below to find out more about each one and how they can help you with your social media goals.

And check in every day to Sprout Social Insights for more how to guides and breaking social media news.

Facebook Bought Instagram: What Does It Mean for Your Brand?

It’s a familiar story in the business world. A small, innovative start-up gets acquired for a jaw-dropping amount by a behemoth company. In the latest chapter of this story in the social media world, the characters are Instagram and Facebook.

The general reaction to the $1 billion deal among the Instagram community thus far has been equal parts shock and sadness. Most of the outcry has been concern that Facebook ownership will change the much-loved brand for the worse. But we won’t know anything for sure until the deal is finalized.

Once the dust settles, what should you expect to see? How will the acquisition change the platforms, and how will that impact your business? Let’s take a look at some possible outcomes. [ Read More... ]

How Often Should You Tweet?

Twitter is a great place to promote your content or product and to discuss issues with your followers. But, there are no hard and fast rules for how often you should tweet.

If you’re just starting out, it can be tough to decide how much tweeting is enough as you establish your following. Even if you’re taking over an existing Twitter account, you may have some knowledge to go on, but it can take a while to find your stride and truly work out the kinks in your daily tweeting routine.

So, how often should you tweet? That depends largely on what you have to say and the methods you use to say it. Here are some things to consider to help you decide what level of tweeting is appropriate for your business. [ Read More... ]

Leverage Twitter Hashtags Used on Mainstream TV

This week we show you how to leverage Twitter hashtags used on mainstream TV to get your tweets seen by a much larger audience.

Twitter has been around long enough, and attracted such a large following that it’s now being incorporated into the broadcasts of many popular TV shows. This provides a great way for fans to stay engaged with the shows online. By using Twitter hashtags mentioned on mainstream TV, it also provides you an opportunity to expose your brand to huge audiences when you get in on the conversations too. [ Read More... ]

3 Creative Ways Churches Use Facebook

According to the Bible, when Jesus spoke, he often attracted large crowds. Churches and religious organizations of all denominations now have a captive, potential audience approaching 1 billion people on Facebook. Talk about a sermon on the mount!

Churches that can adapt to the most popular current trends, including the use of social media as marketing tool, stand to spread their messages far and wide. If there was once a taboo around using secular techniques to attract an audience, these concerns appear to be less of an issue today.

Here are three real-world examples of how churches and church-related groups are using the power of Facebook to build larger and more engaged audiences.
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How to Find a WordPress Developer for Your Company Blog

So, you want to launch a company blog. Congratulations! A blog is a great way to present yourself to the public, and to share information about your business and your industry. The big challenge for you now is to get that site up and running.

One of the most popular blogging platforms available today is WordPress. It’s an open-source platform that can be tweaked and customized with themes and plugins in just about any creative way you can imagine.

That said, if you aren’t secure in your coding skills, or if you have a complex layout in mind for your blog, then you may need to enlist the services of a professional developer. Whether you want something clean and simple or fancy and flashy, here are some suggestions to help you find the right person to make your company blog a reality. [ Read More... ]

Introducing Our Social Media for Enterprise Channel

At Sprout Social we’ve worked hard to be the definitive destination for small businesses and brands looking to make sense of the social media space, but Sprout Social is about more than just the corner bakery. Our social media management tool also helps large organizations coordinate their efforts and manage their teams to make their marketing efforts more effective.

That’s why Sprout Insights is launching an Enterprise channel — it includes the same kinds of quality articles you’ve grown to expect for small business owners and marketers, but with additional razor-sharp focus on the needs of large companies, big agencies, or national brands that need heavy duty solutions to big challenges. [ Read More... ]

Potential Hires: What To Look For In Their Social Media Profiles

The overlap of personal and business activities on social media has made managing your personal brand more important than ever.

The amount of personal information that is publicly available on services like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram is tremendous. A quick Google search of a name and email address can yield deep results regarding a person’s interests, opinions, and history.

For an employer, this offers a unique opportunity to get to know a candidate in a deeper way before or after an interview. A candidate’s social media presence can offer insight into what he or she might be like as an employee. Here are some things to keep in mind the next time you’re looking to hire someone.
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Why You Shouldn’t Create a Viral Video

According to YouTube, over 4 billion videos are viewed every day. The video-sharing site also receives over 800 million unique visitors every month. With numbers like these — even larger when you include other video-sharing platforms — it’s no wonder why so many businesses want their products showcased on video.

Indeed, promoting your products, services and your brand through online video is an excellent marketing strategy. The trouble is, many people tend to think that the terms “video-marketing strategy” and “viral video” are interchangeable. They are not.

While a sound video-marketing strategy usually involves a thorough assessment of your offerings, your target audience and your overall business objectives, creating a viral video (or attempting to do so) is usually just about maximizing the number of views a video gets. While there are some exceptions, it’s generally not a great idea to create a viral video for your business. Here’s why.
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Why Your Facebook Page Should Like Other Brands’ Pages

This week we’ll discuss strategies for Liking and tagging other brands’ Facebook Pages with your own, and the reasons why that can benefit you.

It wasn’t even that long ago that Facebook added the ability to Like and tag other Facebook Pages on yours, and at first glance it seems a risky proposition with little reward. Why would you essentially put a link to another Page on your own, giving those precious new visitors to your Page somewhere to exit to before they Like you?
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[Image credits: Karl Nilsson, Tom Brandt, Steve Gasser, Sebastian Fuss, David Halgart, John Morrison, Greg Schechter]