“Our social media person quit, and we’ve been trying to keep up ourselves, but nobody has time to post consistently.” “The person we hired is good at writing posts, but we don’t have any engagement, and our fan and follower growth is flat.” “We know we need social media, but nobody on staff has any real experience beyond Facebook.” Here’s the thing about effective social media outreach and engagement: it’s a big job. Doing social media well is about more than writing and scheduling posts on Facebook or uploading photos to Instagram and hoping they’ll magically drive business your way. You need to be strategic about how and when and what you post; you need to be consistent, posting and tweeting multiple times per day, every day; you need to understand how to use Facebook advertising to target specific audiences in order to drive fan growth, website clicks, and likes, comments, and shares; you need to monitor all of your channels in real time, in case of negative comments and opportunities to newsjack trending topics; and you have to know how to measure whether you’re getting results — using not only channel insights, but also Google analytics and other tools to track effectiveness. The truth is most individual practitioners don’t have proficiency in all of the above strategies and skills. The truth is the social media person you hired can’t keep up with managing multiple channels AND running campaigns AND building creative assets AND reporting AND knowing about the latest changes in algorithms and best practices. The truth is your social media shouldn’t go on vacation when your practitioner does. And that’s why, pretty much from when I started WideFoc.us 10 years ago this August, we’ve built and refined a team-based approach to social media planning and execution. It’s the one model that always works, with sufficient division of responsibilities and development of back-ups and content review to keep the wheels on every day, week after week, month after month. A team-based approach ensures consistency and strategic direction. At WideFoc.us, we assign a dedicated community manager to each client. They work with our senior strategist and me on competitive analysis and discovery, building out a content calendar and strategic direction. The community managers write and post content across channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and even Snapchat, and monitor those channels in real time for opportunities to engage or manage online reputation issues. They are also all up in Twitter and Instagram every day, tweeting and commenting in real-time to build on conversations and trending topics. The community managers are supported daily by our senior community manager, who reviews all content, our copy editor, who checks scheduled posts and tweets for mechanics and style issues, and me, because I have a visceral reaction to misspellings and faulty syntax. Our senior strategist works with the community managers to understand client goals and run sophisticated ad and boost campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms to drive measurable results. The community managers are also supported by our office manager, who makes sure they have everything they need to be successful and helps them keep up with deadlines and changes. Because we’re a cohesive team, the community managers support each other – brainstorming, assisting in development of image and video assets, jumping in when extra help is needed, and filling in when someone gets sick or has a family emergency. And then there’s me — working with every member of the team to make sure we’re hitting our marks and being strategic and effective, spending time with clients to talk about what we’re up to and where we want to improve, keeping my ears open to new opportunities and developments in the social media world, and meeting with potential clients to bring them on board. Our team-based approach is effective because we all know our roles, we have strong processes in place, we have plenty of redundancy built into our individual competencies, we cherish open and honest communication with each other, and we love what we do. Stuff happens, of course. People get offered cool new jobs, or move away, or don’t end up being a good fit. Clients come and go, and our needs change, too. But because every client is supported by a full team, unexpected changes can be handled with minimal fuss, and performance never suffers. If you’re the lone social media practitioner and feel overwhelmed by your responsibilities, the best thing you can do is build your own internal support team. Recruit other employees to assist you by assigning them specific tasks and deadlines. Maybe the host staff at your restaurant can snap time-lapse videos and fun photos for you to use in your content. Or the cashiers at your retail store can write down good quotes when they overhear customers enjoying their shopping experience. Little gifts of content assistance can help take the pressure off. But you’ll still need to get training on Facebook/Instagram advertising, because their organic reach is so painfully low. If you’re not boosting posts to targeted custom audiences and running campaigns to increase your fan base, then all of that work isn’t really doing anything. You’ll also want to find ways to share your successes with the team, to show how your social media efforts are paying off — look at the clicks to the website coming from social channels, an increase in shares and comments, or mentions by influencers, for instance. Reporting back to your company can help others understand the value of what you do. And of course, we can help, too. Although we generally manage all aspects of social media strategy and implementation for our clients, we also conduct a hybrid approach, where the social media manager is responsible for gathering and creating visual content, like photos and videos, and communicating priorities and upcoming events with our team, while we act as a support system – posting, monitoring, running boosts and ad campaigns, and reporting back. We can help you make a case to your company’s leadership for bringing us on board as your de facto social media team. Because, if you’re going to do social media that actually delivers results, you can’t do it alone. You need a support system, if only to back you up the next time you get jury duty and the municipal Wi-Fi is down. I’m so proud of our WideFoc.us team and honored to begin our second decade in business with a dedicated, eclectic, likeable crew. Contact us to learn more about how we can support you! —by Eric Elkins As CEO and Chief Strategist of WideFoc.us, Eric brings nearly two decades of experience to our clients. In his other life, he’s a single dad, an avid eater, and a bourbon aficionado.

Alright folks, it’s time for our monthly installment of “What the hell am I doing this weekend?” You could spend it sipping cocktails and gossiping on dog-friendly patios with fellow patio queen Chelsea and me, or you could venture out onto the Denver streets and expand your weekend social game. As always, if we missed something, let us know. We’ll show up, drinks and phones in hand, ready to capture your most embarrassing moments and post them directly to social media. After we’ve used the appropriate app to edit them, of course. Here are five of our team’s favorite July events: MCA Mixed Taste Every Wednesday Evening $20 If you’re a Mixed Taste junkie, you understand the innate coolness of pairing unrelated topics with booze and food. And because Denver is filled with eclectic intellectuals, Mixed Taste outgrew their old space and this year partnered with the DCPA to relocate to a much larger venue. Yay elbow room! Throw on a fabulous outfit and head over for a first date, a work outing, or if you just want to meet cognitively stimulating Denverites, like us. Slow Food Nations July 14-16 FREE Slow Food Nations is a festival to taste and explore a world of good, clean, and fair food for all; it combines the energy of a street food festival, the rigor of an academic conference, and the inspiration of a cultural exchange. Enjoy dozens of interactive workshops, delicious tastings, local tours, educational talks, and plenty of meals. Slow Food Nations connects farmers and families, leaders, and eaters to share their stories while shaping the future of food. CinemaQ Film Festival July 19-23 Member $80; General $99 CinemaQ entertains and educates, provokes and persuades, moves and motivates. It celebrates the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities through the exhibition of recent and important LGBTQ films. The annual slate of films aims to share stories, pay tribute to important and iconic figures, and challenge and inspire. Love is love, friends. The Women’s Foundation of Colorado’s 30th Anniversary Celebration Featuring Former First Lady Michelle Obama in Denver July 25 $54.50 - $1,254.50 The Women’s Foundation of Colorado’s mission is to catalyze community to advance and accelerate economic opportunities for Colorado women and their families. And, in recent years, there’s no woman who has consistently advocated for women and worked harder to bring them together than former First Lady Michelle Obama. This fundraising event supports the foundation’s goals of helping low-income women earn livable wages, creating a gateway to greater access and opportunity that breaks the intergenerational cycle of poverty, and putting an end to the impossible choices a woman must make. Women, unite! 5th Annual Cheesman Park Art Fest July 29 & 30 FREE One of the coolest things about living in Denver is having unlimited access to a vast array of parks. And if you’ve been in Denver longer than 24 hours, you know that every weekend there’s always something fun going on. The 5th Annual Cheesman Park Art Fest is no exception. This event showcases the talents of 130 juried artists from 30 states, highlighting the importance of fostering creativity in our communities. Plus, there are food trucks...which are essential to happiness. --By Stephanie March Stephanie March is a Denver native (people seem to like this detail), hates hiking and the mountains, but will travel for a cold PBR and an enlightening convo about the awesomeness of Anaïs Nin. She’s a senior community manager and specializes in sending semi-inappropriate GIFs to her team members. It’s a skill, people.

Is it pronounced “GIF” or “JIF”? In social media circles, the answer tells a lot about the person asked. But we all agree that GIFs are high-performing pieces of visual magic. Even the New York Times recently highlighted how to quickly access GIF libraries. At the same time, uploading your well-crafted creatives across social media platforms can feel like a ton of steps with minimal payoff. It doesn’t have to be that complicated. At WideFoc.us, we strive to make our client brands memorable, relevant, and engaging in all mediums. We build GIFs for use on Facebook and Twitter, on Instagram, and even on client blogs. This post will ensure you know exactly how to get your own GIFs in the right place to drive results for your brand, from reputation building to conversions to increased engagement. Get Your GIFs everywhere. If you don’t have (Denver’s own) Detour’s visual skills, start simple. One of the best ways to capture fans’ and followers’ eyes is with a little motion, and there’s no easier motion than a well-thought-out GIF. They’re smaller than mp4 files, and they loop, highlighting a specific emotion or moment. Although you may prefer to build your gifs right on your phone, that’s not always possible. Or maybe you’re one of the 23% of Americans who still doesn’t have a smartphone (crazy, right?). The good news is that there are several ways to create and upload GIFs from your desktop. Make GIFs on your laptop If you have a set of photos you want to turn into a GIF, stitch them together through EZ GIF. This website offers multiple tools to create the file you need. First, use the JPG-to-GIF conversion tool or the Video-to-GIF converter. Voilà, you have a GIF file that you can use for Twitter or Facebook Messenger Next, to post your file on Facebook or Twitter, simply upload it to either platform. We’re thrilled that Facebook now allows GIFs to be uploaded directly! (They used to require GIFs be hosted at another place like GIPHY. Finally, if you want to share your GIF on Instagram, Snapchat, or Instagram Stories, you’ll need to use EZ GIF’s GIF-to-mp4 conversion tool. Pro Tip: If you use EZ GIF, we need to stress that you must use high-res images. If your images are small files, they may turn out grainy in the final product. We made this handy guide (following the above directions!) to clarify format and dimension requirements of various social media platforms: Make GIFs from your smartphone (AKA The EASY Way) More good news! It’s super easy to turn your photos, photo bursts, videos, and live photos into GIFs on your phone. Stop what you’re doing and download 5SecondsApp. This app is magical. It can turn video, images, burst photos, and live photos into GIFs. Even more, it’s integrated with social media platforms, so with a click of a button, you can upload to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, Google+, email, SMS, or save it to a file as an mp4, a GIF, or a png. You can even add text, superimpose stickers, add a filter, repeat GIFs, play them in reverse, and crop them. So ditch your B-F or G-F, because now you have a GIF-F. Pro tip: You’ll notice that 5SecondsApp only has the option to crop a photo to 1920 x 1080, while Instagram Stories and Snapchat both require 1080 x 1920. How do you get around it? Rotate your GIF 90-degrees Crop it as 1920 x 1080 Rotate it another 270-degrees You’re welcome. Have any GIF questions or conundrums you’d like us to solve? Comment below or send us an email. Even better, let us know if you’d like us to manage your images and GIFs for your brand. We love finding innovative ways to tell your story. ---- By Paul Bindel Paul has a lifelong love of sentences, words, and writing. After studying English at Evangel University and the University of Oregon, he taught composition and literature for five years. At WideFoc.us, he is energized by the fast-paced challenge of connecting his clients to real-time conversations.

Snapchat is the OG of “stories,” around long before Instagram and Facebook adopted their own version of the 24-hour memoir. When I first discovered the creative control and detail I could put into one story, I spent hours staging baking snaps or recording myself in fast forward while singing to Billy Joel. It was just me and Snapchat—I was smitten long before I got my hands on a pair of Spectacles. Snapchat’s strategic and ingenious launch of the video-recording sunglasses had their audience doing all of the promotional legwork. At first, they dropped bright yellow vending machine “bots” around the country one at a time, and had fans traveling and waiting in line for the limited number of Spectacles. Now you can order them online. The product itself is not the first of its kind (remember Google Glass?), but Snapchat took an interactive and engaging approach with their marketing, creating hype and urgency, and therefore they had a slam dunk of a product launch. As a longtime lover of the Snapchat app, I was already on board with the new specs, but when I had a chance to try out a pair of the elusive peepers (thanks, boss), I was surprised by how I used them. The shades have a fun look, are simple to use, and pair easily with your phone. Within minutes, I was recording video FROM MY FACE. Walking about town, I hit a tiny button next to my left eye and...magic. I was collecting content, hands-free, in 10 second bites, and was still engaging with people around me. As a visual junkie, I’m always taking pictures and documenting my life (as any self-respecting Millennial who works in social media would do), but with my specs, I wasn’t experiencing my day through the lens of my phone, I was interacting with the world. Crazy, right?! Video recorded through the Spectacles streams to your Snapchat app via bluetooth. You can then post the videos directly to your story or save them to your camera roll. It’s a surprise every time you open the app to look at the latest download of videos. I encountered a slight learning curve on how to best position myself and my subject for an ideal recording, but after a day or so of using the glasses, I picked up tricks for the perfect video. Like the company’s original mission, the content is organic and raw, and has Evan Spiegel all over it. What surprised me the most? I took videos and more videos. I showed off the crazy glasses at an event and recorded even more hilarious videos of people amazed and unaware that I was recording them. But once I downloaded all of my fisheyed, first person, day-in-the-life content, I POSTED THEM ALL ON INSTAGRAM. What does this mean? I felt like I was cheating on Snapchat, but, I have more followers on Instagram, so for marketing purposes it made more sense to post the videos on the platform where I have the most visibility. And our clients have more followers on Instagram. Within three months of launching IG stories, the number of story users surpassed Snapchat’s. While Spectacles are fun and hyped like hell, will they help Snapchat build the user base it needs? Probably not. (Though Kaleigh disagrees.) That said, I’ll keep snapping. By Chelsea Keeney Chelsea has more ideas than she knows what to do with. Admittedly, she hates free time and receives frequent visits from insomnia, resulting in many fond evenings sipping Amaro while concocting weird side projects to overload her schedule like Ramen Mafia and Hot Shot Baristas. She is a self-proclaimed creative mastermind (aka narcissist).

Facebook’s news feed algorithm shows preference for video posts, but one of the most challenging tasks when it comes to producing videos is implementing simple production techniques. Many marketers ask the following questions: What should I talk about? Is it okay to use a cell phone to take photos and videos? Is professional equipment, staging, and lighting necessary? I recently noticed one of my friends, Emily, on social media creating captivating videos for direct marketing. They were cute, short, and well-lit. I could immediately tell they were edited using text overlay, Hyperlapse, and trimmed to perfection, so I asked her how she started with video production. This is her story. “When I started producing short videos for my makeup and skincare direct marketing company, most of the videos were short makeup tutorials. My first videos were done sitting on my bedroom floor in front of my window with a windshield phone mount holding my phone for me.” A windshield holder? I found Emily’s innovative approach both ingenious and creative. When I asked about her editing process, Emily shared with me that she did no editing, and just took clips until she got it right and then combined them together. Since she began in 2016, she’s completely upgraded her camera equipment. When facing the challenge of filming in the evening, she purchased a light ring to improve her video quality tremendously. Light rings are easy to find on Amazon and can range from $11 - $139 for a full set, including a stand, light right, and cell phone holder. She is now also using iMovie for editing, which is easily self-taught, and downloaded Splice, an app that lets you add music to your videos. And that’s it! “I have been asked on many occasions what do you use, how do you edit, etc.” Emily told me. “The secret has been my $115 ring light, my iPhone, and two apps.” Since then, she has upgraded to a Canon digital camera and bought a couple backdrops. Videos are a powerful way to quickly communicate with your audience. Users tend to connect with people more effectively than they do with products. When done properly, videos can also help create a clear visual picture of the product or service being presented. Videos on both Facebook and Instagram perform better than any other content types, and even tweets are more likely to be retweeted if they have video attached. Emily left me with this advice: “Never overthink what you need to make your videos great, just do.” Check her videos out at @feelingneutral and @emclawler. Products: Light Ring $11 Full Set with Light, Stand, and Cell Phone Holder $139 Upgrades: Canon Digital Camera $200 - $500 Backdrop $14 By Carrie Gottschalk Carrie Gottschalk is a Senior Strategist at WideFoc.us, and excels at creating effective social advertising campaigns for our clients. In her free time, she’s an avid traveler, a Denver foodie, and she dedicates her marketing and PR prowess to the nonprofit Denver Active 20-30 as a board member.

If you’re into social media (and you most certainly are because you’re reading this blog), you understand that Snapchat is the app for millennials. I’ll be the first to admit that I check my snaps more often than I scroll through my Facebook newsfeed and Instagram combined. But if we’ve learned anything from the fall of Vine (2017), it’s clear that it takes more than just being a fun app to last. If you’ve watched Silicon Valley on HBO, you may already know the primary issue with Snapchat’s numbers: If their user base increases without substantial ad revenue, they can’t afford to pay for the app’s bandwidth, storage, and increasing server costs. And they can’t turn a profit, which means their stock price drops (more) and their stockholders lose money. So how can the selfie-centered platform not just survive, but thrive among the social media hotshots? Let’s break it down. A huge win came this year during the 2017 Digital Trust Report, which crowned Snapchat the most trusted platform among its competitors. It also scored highest (by a large margin) for its perceived honesty, which increases the persuasiveness of advertisements and influencers on the platform. But wait, what ads? What influencers? Where is all of this on Snapchat? Surprise: you’re advertising for companies when you use some filters! How many times have you swiped through your geofilters to show off your new Colorado Rockies hat at a baseball game, or used the lens during Hairspray Live! to don a Tracy Turnblad hairstyle? Snapchat’s unobtrusive ad products create more organic engagement opportunities without affecting the experience for consumers. And. It. Works. How else can advertising make Snapchat money? Via influencers. Let’s use the media-savvy Kardashians as our prime example. Being a millennial in the office means I religiously follow the Kardashians. Not one, all of them. They’re the biggest social media influencers I follow; their profiles have taught me the difference between simply participating on Snapchat and being a kick-ass influencer. Let’s take a look at the youngest of the crew, Kylie Jenner. On her Snapchat, King Kylie updates her followers on a day in the life of a 19-year old with a never-ending flow of money, and of course, pimping her newest lip kits. Look at the difference between her lip kit launch on Snapchat and Instagram, where you’ll notice candid vs. heavily-designed approaches: Snapchat Summer Palette Launch Instagram Koko Collection Ads Jenner has been snapping more and more often to highlight her booming cosmetics lines by creating swatches on her arm, and makeup tutorials that correlate her highlighters, eyeshadows, and infamous matte lipsticks. Her influence has been so large on the app, Snapchat even sent the teen their new Spectacles to test out and review. She is creating a booming business by inviting her fans and followers into her extravagant lifestyle, and now more brands are trying to tap into her success. Due to her social media influence, Puma and TopShop have signed Jenner as a spokesperson and influencer for their products. When they show their brands are part of her everyday life, more millennials can picture themselves in higher-end clothing choices, more organically than via ads in magazines, posts on Facebook, or even in Instagram stories. Because of the high trust rates by Snapchat users, companies tap into influencer outreach through the real-time app to make their advertisements less “PICK ME CHOOSE ME LOVE ME” and more, “Hey...Rihanna is floating on a giant inflatable swan with a cup of rosé, this could be you.” Now, when brands combine influencer marketing and Snapchat’s ad opportunities, they create brand stories that aren’t only consumed by their target audiences, but created by them. With the trust rates of Snapchat influencers and users, even smaller companies can create geofilters or lenses and have loyal customers create personalized, multimedia messages for their promotional events or sales. Snapchat allows your target audiences to create candid advertisements for your company, and it’s cheaper than many alternatives. Creating a Snap ad that includes a video feature, interactive games, and, as of January 2017, deep links, can run around $3,000/month (in an industry where $4,000-$7,000/month is the average), and Snapchat’s swipe-up rate is 5X higher than any clickthrough rate on other platforms. Gatorade created a Snap ad around Serena Williams’s 23rd Grand Slam victory that included an 8-bit tennis game when you swiped up, and 30 million users spent an average of 3 minutes on the ad (HINT: that’s a ridiculously high engagement rate for an advertisement on social media!). I don’t think Snapchat is out of the game in the fight for video, either. They’re still the top “one-on-one” photo and video messaging preference among social media users, and they’re even rolling out SnapchatTV this fall. It’s still the most popular app for millennials, and right now that’s who a majority of advertisers are looking to connect with on social channels. The branding opportunities are endless, and it’s your customers telling their story of why your promotions or products are the best, not just your brand always promoting itself. Whether it’s creating a face lens to turn users into a taco for Cinco De Mayo, or unlockable geofilters so customers can promote where they’re drinking for Thirsty Thursday, Snapchat’s advertisement opportunities are only growing. Their users love it, and that’s why we’ll continue to recommend the platform to clients who are looking for that kind of reach with younger target audiences. By Kaleigh Myers Community manager Kaleigh Myers has lived in New Jersey, Las Vegas, Amish Country, and Chicago before finally settling in Denver. When not coming up with a clever caption for her Instagrams, you can find Kaleigh in her car on her way up to Summit County for a weekend adventure in the mountains.

I had just returned home from the grocery store, and my daughter was playing “Overwatch” on the couch. As I put away my sundry purchases, I mentioned to her that I’d bought plain drinkable yogurt and planned on mixing in honey powder for a healthy snack. “Why would you do that to yourself?” she asked me, aghast. Her snarky comment made me laugh hard enough to tweet it, and it wasn’t more than a few minutes later when a drinkable yogurt company responded to my tweet: I replied that I “just might do that,” and the Früzinga social team said: Curious to know if the brand would follow through, I sent them my home address and waited to see what would happen next. Two days later, this happened: I received a FedEx insulated package of their whole line of drinkable yogurt. And a couple coupons, too! I’m not a food blogger. And as a dad/mom blogger, I don’t write product reviews or do giveaways. Though I have a fairly healthy Twitter following, it’s not global influencer level. But I am active and vocal on several social platforms and I share about my brand experiences often. So the Früzinga team did a nice job of monitoring online conversations about drinkable yogurt and turned my off-the-cuff tweet into a way to generate more visibility and maybe sell some products. I tweeted a thank you and included a photo of my free yogurt, I’m writing about the experience here (less as an endorsement — though it was tasty — than an acknowledgment of their savvy marketing), and I’m also a new customer. And all for the cost of shipping in a fancy box. When WideFoc.us does online outreach for our clients, we take a formal approach to finding influencers and gatekeepers, but we also spend a lot of time monitoring relevant conversations and engaging with target audiences on a real-time basis. We may not be as salesy as Früzinga was to me (“Buy our stuff!”), but we’ll offer advice and encouragement in order to build trust and interactions. And sometimes we’ll send off a coupon or free product as a random act of kindness, knowing it could translate into something positive for our client. We also have an effective process for influencer outreach. Our hands-on approach creates a steady stream of interactions with thought leaders, media gatekeepers, analysts, and relevant bloggers, creating a personal relationship that builds trust and results. The process goes like this: Social Media Targets Document We create a set of recommended blogs, journalists, analysts, professional journals, and/or online groups that are likely prospects for earned coverage, and we break the list down by audience segment and qualifying indicators. Softening the Market We start to build relationships with likely influencers by sharing their content and engaging them in conversation on social platforms, so we're already on their radar when we contact them about coverage or sampling. Messaging Templates We personalize every email to a potential influencer in order to demonstrate familiarity with their work. But we also write client-approved boilerplate copy used in the body of the email. This is essential. Outreach and Follow-up We track conversations, knowing that, often, the first email or message will be declined or ignored. Patient relationship-building and communication is key. Once a media outlet or influential blogger has agreed to write a review, do an interview, or participate in a giveaway, we notify the client and make an introduction. Owned Content and Ongoing Interactions We don't stop communicating with the influencer after coverage has happened, because we want to build on that relationship for when we have future product launches or stories to tell. Report and Renew We provide reporting on all placements, and renew an active, dynamic list of potential influencers, to build a consistent rollout of owned content. This bifurcated approach — formal outreach alongside real-time conversational interaction — is super-effective in increasing visibility and coverage for our clients. Kudos to fruzinga for getting on my radar! —by Eric Elkins As CEO and Chief Strategist of WideFoc.us, Eric brings nearly two decades of experience to our clients. In his other life, he’s a single dad, an avid eater, and a bourbon aficionado.

Bots, bots, and more bots! Facebook’s annual developer conference, F8, kicked off April 18 in San Jose, CA. The highlights? A slew of advancements in artificial intelligence, virtual reality, video, Messenger, and more. Lucky enough, I was able to convince my favorite boss in the world to let me attend! While in San Jose, I geeked out, ate awesome food, met a few new, cool people, danced to Chance the Rapper, created a Facebook Spaces avatar, recorded a 360 video, danced to Chance the Rapper, and got to see Mark Zuckerberg live, in person. Below are a few highlights from the conference. Augmented Reality: Similar to Pokemon GO, you now can leave notes, images, and tips around your house or throughout the office via Facebook’s new AR platform. This feature is not only limited to gaming; you can also create virtual art in the real world. Welcome to the future, friends. As Zuckerberg said, “This is going to be a thing in the future—people standing around looking at blank walls.” Facebook Workplace: Is imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? Is Facebook now going after Slack? Our team joined Facebook Workplace to check it out. Here is what we’ve found so far. Quick and easy integrations with G Suite Easy to navigate due to the familiarities with Facebook Efficient communication through chat and groups with our team Facebook Spaces VR: Virtually jump into a family dinner or a possible vacation spot with Oculus Rift. While the WideFoc.us crew is based in Denver, many of our team members have extended family in San Francisco, Seattle, and the oh so sexy, Iowa. Want to attend a birthday party, but have no summer money to travel? No problem. You can now join your family REAL-TIME during special events while sitting in the comfort of your own home. Facebook Spaces also comes in handy when planning a vacation. Explore far-off destinations and virtually plunge into the beaches of Portugal or explore the island of Halong Bay. Camera Effects Platform: Facebook’s new Frame & AR Studio will be huge this year, through both the Facebook app and Facebook’s stand-alone Messenger app. Similar to Snapchat and Instagram Stories, the two platforms allow you to post stories in real-time about your experiences throughout the day. What’s different here is that you can incorporate an AR component into your posts when sharing the world through your phone. Developers Circle: This is a new community for Facebook developers. Guess how many are outside of the US: 90%, 80%, or 60%? If you guessed 80%, you’re correct! Unfortunately, not all developers have the same access to current educational tools. This new platform allows for the global community to connect through meetups, workshops, and hacking sessions. Combining resources and knowledge allows global growth. Have you joined yet? Places Graph: With more than 140 million locations tracked, Facebook’s Places Graph API has become the forefront of local business marketing, and this feature is now free. The program was developed internally on Instagram and Messenger. Facebook’s new API and SDK methods provide access to its rich placement data. According to the company: We’re providing free access to over 140 million places around the world, the same data that powers Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. We’ve created Search, Current Place, and Place Information endpoints, so you can find places relevant to your users and provide helpful information about each location. The Places Graph ties query limits to the size of your customer base and is integrated with the Facebook SDK so that it’s easy to get started and scale quickly. Messenger + Chat Extensions: By far, one of my favorite new Facebook tools, Messenger bots, launched in full force at the conference. Every entrance to every session was marked with a board outside asking the user to check-in via Facebook Messenger’s “parametric code.” This code launched us into a fully functional Facebook Messenger bot conversation that allowed us to interact with the session, ask questions, provided access to beta tools, and they even gave away a bit of free swag. In addition, Facebook Messenger Extension was also introduced, which encourages relationship building, conversation, and other functionality. Facebook chat extensions allow you to interact with apps such as Open Table, Spotify, Mastercard, Nike, The Food Network, and M, Facebook’s AI assistant, who helps you schedule meetings, set locations, request a ride, send money, and more. Have you noticed a trend? Video: The most important aspect of every new feature was a prominent video component. Video was so important at this conference that Facebook gave every person in attendance a FREE 360 camera. The camera allows for an experience that creates 360-degree, spherical videos, which you can livestream to viewers in phone-based VR headsets. --- Conferences like this allow WideFoc.us to stay ahead of the game when it comes to social media strategy! We’ve been brainstorming how these new Facebook tools will help our clients break through the noise and drive real results. If you’re not taking advantage of Facebook messenger bots, video, and other beta features, drop us a line at info@widefoc.us today. -- by Carrie Gottschalk Carrie Gottschalk is Senior Strategist at WideFoc.us, and excels at creating effective social advertising campaigns for our clients. In her free time, she’s an avid traveler, a Denver foodie, and she dedicates her marketing and PR prowess to the nonprofit Denver Active 20-30 as a board member.

Tis’ the warm weather event season, friends. Sit back, sip a bacon bloody Mary, and let us break down Denver’s event calendar for your reading pleasure. June edition. One of the coolest parts of working at WideFoc.us is our CEO encouraging us to live our lives in inspirational, beautifully unique ways. No restraints. So I put together this list because we have an intellectually demanding, diverse staff that demands new, dynamic experiences in this state and beyond. Film on the Rocks May 15 - September 11 $15+ If you’ve been in Denver longer than 5 minutes, you know how important Film on the Rocks is to Colorado natives. As with any Red Rocks event, the coolest of the cool are more than happy to endure wind, snow, and rain just to hear local bands and watch classics like “Purple Rain” (can we take a moment, please?). With a solid 2017 line-up, including “Bridesmaids,” “The Fifth Element,” and “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of Desert,” you’d be remiss if you didn’t attend at least one show. Plus you can bring in snacks. And the Widefoc.us team loves us some snacks. Denver Chalk Arts Festival June 3 & 4 FREE The Denver Chalk Art Festival isn’t your kid’s poorly executed sidewalk art, folks. You know it’s true. You’ll find a ton of things to do the weekend of June 3, but this event brings Denver artists’ creativity to the streets. More than 200 artists create real-time works over two days — human skill and imagination on display for an ephemeral moment, before it’s all washed away by the next massive summer thunderstorm. And because it’s located on Denver’s popular Larimer Square, you can take a long cocktail break at any of the fabulous bars mid-chalk walk. B-Side Music Fridays Fridays in June Free with museum admission, $5 after 5PM I have a thing for the MCA; we’ve been making memories for years, and sure, it’s not Facebook official, but it’s serious. Maybe it’s the eclectic, thought-provoking exhibits. Perhaps it’s the strong pour cocktails. Or it could be, could be, that beautiful rooftop, which hosts some of the coolest bands in Denver. If you’ve never been to B-Side Music Fridays, go. Now. It’s one of those Denver thangs that will impress out-of-town guests, first dates, and just make you feel as though you’re in Chelsea even if you’ve never been there. If you’re nervous about going alone, just contact one of us...we’ll 100% meet you there. Well, I will. Spring Glow Flow Silent Disco: FREE Yoga June 6, July 4, August 1 FREE The WideFoc.us fam is in wicked good shape (abs of steel!), and because they love and support me, they understand the only way to convince me to do any kind of physical activity is to pair it with hooch and sweet, sweet jams. So when they discovered CorePower yoga + Infinite Monkey Theorem wine, they knew I was down. The cool thing about flowing with accompanying beats is you can tune out all those inner voices and just chill the hell out while bettering your body, mind, and spirit. If I can do it, you can do it! Buskerfest June 23 & 24 FREE Our Senior Strategist is a little obsessed with Denver Union Station, and frankly, we don’t blame her. Smashing cocktails, insta-worthy food, trains, and hula hoopers? Yas. Buskerfest embraces the odd and extraordinary. This free festival breaks up the monotony of Denver’s Civic Park events (no judgement) and allows you to let your freak flag fly. Freely. Sidenote: If you can book a room at The Crawford? Your life will be forever changed in the best possible way. --By Stephanie March Stephanie March is a Denver native (people seem to like this detail), hates hiking and the mountains, but will travel for a cold PBR and an enlightening convo about the awesomeness of Anaïs Nin. She’s a senior community manager and specializes in sending semi-inappropriate GIFs to her team members. It’s a skill, people.

Still photos, snappy videos, filters, or Boomerangs? Whether on our personal profiles or our clients’ accounts, the WideFoc.us team prides ourselves on going above and beyond with Instagram posts to increase visibility, interactions, and even clicks! Take a look at our favorite apps to use when we make posts pop. Boomerang Relive your favorite moments over and over again with this fun, easy-to-use video app. Boomerang shoots micro-short video loops, resulting in quirky snapshots of your life. The one-tap controls make the app easy to use, and it’s now a feature on Instagram, which means you can add an interesting remix to your stories. Repost Image from RiNo Art District The Repost app makes it easier to repost your favorite photos and videos while giving credit to the original Instagrammer. One of the most effective ways to increase the fan base of our client’s accounts are by engaging with potential followers through likes, comments, and shares. Reposting their product reviews, related photos, and other compelling images is a powerful outreach strategy. Just find the photo you like, click the [...] button in the top right corner of the Instagram post, copy the share URL, and open Repost — the app does the rest! Background Music for Video Video from WideFoc.us Add any iTunes song to your recorded videos to create dazzling clips . Select your video from your photo album, choose the song from your iTunes account, select a start time for your audio and merge the two together to create a mesmerizing clip. This app is very simple to use, and makes your videos 10,000x better— especially in slo-mo! Color Pop Image from JollyBod [https://www.instagram.com/jollybod/] Color Pop allows you to select parts of your photo to keep by highlighting those areas in full color, and converting the rest to black and white. We found these images most effective for our retail clients to highlight specific products in a store, or simply for dramatic results. PicPlayPost Image from Community Manager, Chelsea [https://www.instagram.com/p/BT2x73aAkKF/] PicPlayPost helps you create video collages using photos, videos, GIFs, and music. Apple’s “App of the Week” is perfect for highlighting concerts, community events, or...wait for it...POSTING GIFS ON INSTAGRAM! Layout Image from HW Home. Created by the same team that brought you Boomerang, Layout designs fun, one-of-a-kind collages to share with friends. Perfect for birthday posts or weekend highlights, Layout’s smooth, intuitive process allows for complete creative control. You can also mirror, flip, or replace images easily, and capture the moment in Photo Booth mode with quick, spontaneous shots. Share your photos onto your camera roll and then blast them out to all of your social networks. Hyperlapse Another Instagram product, Hyperlapse creates smooth time-lapse videos without the need for tripods or filming equipment. Its simple design lets you focus on shooting first, and then allows you to edit the speed of your videos before sharing. Our Instagram story queen, Chelsea, uses this app for her clients, creating quick sneak peaks through Instagram stories for Denver events, storewide sales, and to create a sense of place in communities and neighborhoods. What are your favorite photo and video apps? If you need assistance in incorporating these Instagram apps into your business strategy for your company, contact us today! By Kaleigh Myers Kaleigh enjoys skiing, hiking, and snowboarding, and enjoys traveling around the world. She also takes pride in her past work experiences of being a camp counselor, a museum guard, animal shelter receptionist, and preschool lunch lady, and how they make her the dynamic person she is today.

Let’s be honest—blogging is a pain in the butt. Writing original content on a consistent basis normally takes a backseat to our daily to-do lists, but giving people a reason to come back to your website and establishing yourself as a thought leader is crucial to the success of your business. When done right, blogging can generate a substantial following and a sense of community, improve your search ranking, and increase your visibility — all to ultimately help your bottom line. And because we’re masters of real-time social media, we know wicked simple tricks to uplevel your blog game in a sustainable way. 1. Be Consistent: Because blogs are a way to interact and communicate with your current and potential customers, it’s imperative that you not only post on a regular basis (at least once per week is preferred, but even a couple times per month is good), but also offer your readers engaging content they can rely on. Humans are creatures of habit, so if you’re publishing blog posts that your readers find useful, they’re likely to come back to your website on a regular basis. Tip: Create a content calendar and plan out posts to ensure they’re being written and posted consistently. Assign posts and deadlines to other members of your team. 2. Use Google’s Keyword Tool: We understand keyword tools may seem like Marketing 101, but when you’re busting out content regularly, you can easily forget to include words and phrases that people are using when they search for information you provide. In order to schmooze with Google, you have to play their game, and the algorithms are ever-changing (frustrating, we know!). What does stay consistent is Google’s love for relevant content. And one way to ensure your article gets to the first page of search results is to use Google’s Keyword Tool. This handy tool allows you to search for and use relevant keywords and phrases within your article. You can plug in words and see their search volume (aka popularity), which takes the guesswork out of using terms and phrases that are used by your target audiences. Remember: Now that more people are using voice to search, they’re using full sentences or questions. Do the same in your copy (Example: “Hey Google, why shouldn’t I hire an intern to do my social media?” becomes this. Tip: Invest in Google AdWords. 3. Engage Potential Customers: No matter the industry you’re in, you almost certainly use terminology that you and your peers are familiar with. But keep in mind that you also need to reach out to those who may not be privy to your insider lingo. Once a month, include basic how-to articles on your website; these pieces can hit big because they’re what people are actually searching for in Google. Throw in a “back to basics,” “FAQs,” or “tips” blog post and you might see a healthy spike in website traffic (see the title of this post, for example!). Obviously, a thought leader like you always wants to be on the forefront of breaking news in your industry, but don’t forget that reaching new clients means making a case for your services or products in ways they can understand. Tip: To keep potential customers coming back for more, try to post to your blog at the same time and day every week. 4. Use Captivating Images: The average attention span is now 8 seconds, which means you have a short amount of time to make an impression and convince your visitor to stay on your blog. And this is where photos and videos come in handy. Using photos in your blog posts not only makes readers stick around longer, but also uses space to create the illusion of shorter articles. Short paragraphs paired with captivating images (or gifs!) visually stimulate readers, which keep them on the page longer and increases the likelihood that they’ll check out older blog posts (don’t forget to link to other, related posts in new content!). And don’t forget to include keyword-heavy descriptions when loading images on your website. Tip: Use Pixaby to find captivating images for free. 5. Be Concise: In this age of immediacy, it’s more important than ever to get your point across…quickly. Try writing short introductory paragraphs and using bullet points instead of lengthy sections. The word count should tend to be around 300-500 words (2-3 paragraphs), but if you’re creative with space and use images to break up the text, your readers will be more engaged with longer posts and will be more likely to share. Tip: Be creative with spacing and formatting - use bullets, insets, even drop quotes to break up copy. Does this all still sound like more than you can manage on your own? Luckily for you, we have a team of talented copywriters who can not only plan, write, edit, and post to your blog, but drive readers to it from social channels like Facebook and Instagram. For more information, contact us at info@widefoc.us or click here. --By Stephanie March Stephanie March is a Denver native (people seem to like this detail), hates hiking and the mountains, but will travel for a cold PBR and an enlightening convo about the awesomeness of Anais Nin. She’s a senior community manager and specializes in sending semi-inappropriate GIFs to her team members. It’s a skill, people.

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” Oscar Wilde Lately, we’ve noticed a lot of platforms gunning after one another’s unique social media features, and Instagram is not shying away from this visibility tactic. Just in August 2016, Instagram launched their Stories function, and then followed up in December 2016 with Snapchat-like filters and Instagram Live (mimicking Facebook’s live feature). Now Instagram is allowing for users to add up to 10 photos and videos as one swipeable carousel. “You no longer have to choose the single best photo or video from an experience you want to remember,” Instagram writes. What’s the difference between Facebook Carousel posts and Instagram Carousel posts? Let’s break it down. Facebook Carousel posts present themselves with the option to click on each individual frame and the ability to modify the headline and URL link description of each post, which is important when maximizing clickability for your fans. Instagram, on the other hand, is purely visual and only aims to tell a specific story. Which makes sense, because that’s kind of their deal. According to TechCrunch , “If Instagram can take the pressure off posting one perfect photo through Stories, the algorithmic feed, and these new carousel posts, it can lure in more content to satisfy its voracious 600 million monthly users.” And, because we’re on top of our social media game, we recently tested out this new feature. Our client RiNo Art District has a thriving, image-driven audience, so it just made sense that we would use the new functionality to expand their fan base. And it did! With more than 100 likes, this carousel of images helped RiNo obtain more visibility on Instagram. We’ve seen subsequent spikes in fans and interactions with other client carousels. Ideally, this new feature will benefit businesses using both Facebook and Instagram by normalizing the behavior of swiping on posts. If users feel they can tell a story better by utilizing Facebook and Instagram’s platforms, it could limit the continued popularity of Snapchat; a platform with a primary age demographic of 18-24 year olds, which has just gone public in a big way. Are we predicting Snapchat to go the way of Vine and MySpace? Kinda. The tipping point here is to remember that Facebook owns Instagram, which allows them to work together seamlessly. They aren’t recreating the wheel, they’re just making it roll with ease and grace, so discovering creative ways to utilize the platforms together will become beneficial when connecting to your audience online (we’re finding integrated ad campaigns to be particularly effective). This is just one more reminder that Facebook and Instagram together can be powerful platforms for B2C and B2B outreach. Do you have a sophisticated Instagram strategy, which includes a creative content and image posting method combined with sophisticated targeting? If no, we can help. Drop us a line at info@widefoc.us today. By Carrie Gottschalk Carrie is Senior Strategist at WideFoc.us, and excels at creating effective social advertising campaigns for our clients. In her free time, she’s an avid traveler, a Denver foodie, and she dedicates her marketing and PR prowess to the nonprofit Denver Active 20-30 as a board member.