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.

Here’s What Google+ Local’s Zagat Integration Means for Local Business

It’s been a long haul for Google in its attempt to hit the jackpot with social media. After gutting or eliminating many of its properties — Wave, Buzz, and Reader, to name a few — the latest one to bite the dust is Google Places.

However, it has a replacement for Google Places that it rolled out in May. The new property is Google+ Local, and it allows members to search for businesses in the area, just as they could under the old system.

The feature takes advantage of Google’s acquisition of Zagat by incorporating those ratings into the search results. While in theory this shouldn’t mean a major problem for businesses, some technical complications mean you’ll want to confirm how your business is appearing. Here are some things to keep in mind when it comes to evaluating your Google+ Local presence. [ Read More... ]

What Deleted Politician Tweets Tell Us About Social Media Management

Perhaps Barack Obama was onto something when he insisted on keeping his Blackberry. After all, studies have shown that candidates with Twitter accounts receive 46 percent more votes than those without.

While it’s commendable for politicians to embrace the latest platforms to help them connect with their constituents, sometimes those tools can backfire if not used cautiously. Yes, unintended tweets can have a life of their own — even when they’re deleted. For example, who can forget Rep. Anthony Weiner’s infamous tweets that ultimately led to his political downfall.

How and when politicians and their social media teams deal with these nefarious tweets says a lot about how savvy they are about their own social media management. By extension, how politicians and their teams manage their social media campaigns may provide insights as to what type of people they are, or what type of leaders they’ll be in office. Let’s take a look at some deleted politician tweets and see what conclusions can be drawn. [ Read More... ]

Tweet With Your Target Audience

It’s Twitter Tip Tuesday — every Tuesday we’ll focus on one Twitter Tip and show you how to integrate it into your social media strategy. This week we suggest that you don’t spend all your time tweeting with your business peers — focus on tweeting with your target audience instead.

When people are first starting out on Twitter, they’ll often use Twitter search or the “Discover” feature to find people and topics to follow. There’s also a tendency to search for things they’re most familiar with, such as the businesses they’re in, or the cities from which they’re tweeting. This is not a bad way to get the ball rolling. However, if you’re using Twitter for business, you’re going to need to adopt a more strategic approach to get more business value from the platform. [ Read More... ]

4 Warning Signs to Look Out for When Hiring a Social Media Manager

So, you’ve decided that it’s time to add a social media manager to your team. This addition to your staff that can give some consistency to your brand’s presence across the web, as well as freeing up your time to focus on running your business. However, it’s an important hiring decision that should not be made lightly.

This person will be acting as the voice for your company on some very public channels. We’ve already shared some of the traits that make for a good social media manager. Here are a few of the characteristics that should give you pause about a job candidate. [ Read More... ]

6 Ways Sprout Social Makes Brand Management Easier

Sprout Social’s dashboard presents you with an organized view of your social networks and up-to-date information about your followers, demographics, and more.

From the moment you log in, you’ll be presented with timely information to help you recognize trends and see how your accounts are doing. You’ll be able to access the demographics of your networks, recent followers, popular posts, and follower counts, and remain informed on all the important details of your brand. [ Read More... ]

5 Habits of Highly Successful Social Media Managers

There’s more to being a successful social media manager than keeping your networks updated and responding to questions and feedback. You need to look beyond the day-to-day grind and take the time to pull yourself out of the weeds.

Managing social media for any organization is a definitely a juggling act. Not only do you need to stay on top of the latest trends and maintain engaged conversations in your social networks, you need to have clear goals you want to accomplish. You also need to connect those goals with the goals of the entire organization.

If you’re a social media manager, or you’re looking to hire someone for this position, you’ll find these five habits common to all successful practitioners in this field useful to study. [ Read More... ]

Spotlight on Startups: StartupPlays provides playbooks for startups

At Sprout Insights, we comb the web to bring you the most up-to-date and actionable resources on how to use social media to grow your business.

To that end, we’re pleased to present the Sprout Insights series Spotlight on Startups. We’ll find the most innovative, useful startup companies out there, get the inside track on what they’re doing, and tell you how you can leverage their products and services for your own business.

This week we’re pleased to cast the spotlight on StartupPlays — an online platform where startups can purchase how-to guides, mentorship, and professional advice to help them achieve success. [ Read More... ]

3 Media Companies With Brilliant Facebook Strategies

The outlook is not great for traditional media companies these days, but don’t call the industry dead just yet. Many brands in media are working hard to adapt to changes in how people find and read information. By ramping up their presences on social media channels, they are pushing to stay relevant and engaged with their audiences.

Here at Sprout Insights, we recently reviewed some companies that are acing Twitter. But how do media companies measure up on Facebook? With Timeline still creating some barriers to brands looking to interact with their followers, here’s a look at three media companies that have overcome these challenges to create brilliant Facebook marketing campaigns. [ Read More... ]

How the 2012 London Olympics Are Using Social Media

Social media will play a huge role in this year’s Olympic Games. Over the last four years the medium has exploded, giving rise to new coverage opportunities — which the media is taking full advantage of.

Since Beijing, Facebook has grown from 100 million to more than 900 million members. Twitter has seen impressive growth as well, increasing active members from 6 million to more than 500 million. YouTube, which saw 10 hours of uploaded content a minute in 2008 now boasts 72 hours per minute — that’s more than 3 billion hours of content per month.

The Summer Olympics feature some of the most popular and buzz-worthy sports, including soccer, swimming, and track and field. With the understanding that there’s an immediate need for news and information, the 2012 Olympic Games have turned to social media, and here’s how. [ Read More... ]

[Image credits: Thomas Benkö, Christina Xu, Elvert Barnes, StartupPlays (FB), Marcie Casas, Matthew Kenwrick]