In the latest update to Anchor, members can now add voice commentaries to any content on the web.
The process is pretty simple when using any mobile browser:
First, click on the share button on your mobile browser.
Scroll through your list of share options and select “More” if you don’t see Anchor listed. Once you select more, you can enable Anchor to appear as a sharing app.
There will be some brands who join Anchor to simply use the platform as a broadcasting platform. However, that would be missing the whole point of Anchor.
Anchor is not your megaphone, it’s your telephone. It’s a beautiful platform to build conversations with your community. It’s about dialogue – not dictation.
Here are ways to initiate Anchor conversations around work you’re already doing:
Do you want to see more engagement on Anchor?
Are you trying to build a business case for spending time on this emerging platform?
One of the benefits of creating content in Anchor is that the content doesn’t expire like on Periscope and Snapchat. The content lives on and becomes part of larger conversations (especially when using hashtags). Just because you’re not getting immediate engagement doesn’t mean you won’t.
A wave you created last week can start getting replies and plays a month from now. And you can help inspire discussion on your older waves by repackaging these waves on other channels.
Here are just a few ways to repackage Anchor waves:
Brands, please use Anchor like a telephone – not a megaphone. This means listening and adding value to Anchor conversations — not using waves as your audio ad channel.
If you’re thinking about using Anchor for business, here are some suggestions before diving in:
Don’t start creating audio content without first listening to how others are using it. Spend several hours navigating Anchor to listen to discussions that matter to your community.
Listen to some of the trending conversations going on to get a feel of the Anchor culture. If you don’t enjoy listening to other people’s points of view, this platform is not for you. Most of your time on this platform should be listening, not talking.
One of the biggest benefits to listening is that you’ll discover topics and challenges your target audience has. As you listen to waves based around topics important to your business, have your notepad open so that you can jot down the interesting comments made. These waves can inspire a boatload of content. You just need to listen – and take notes of what is being said (and by who).
Do you want to help your waves get seen by the right community on Anchor?
Do you want to increase the plays, likes, and replies on specific waves?
First, we need to all work on creating helpful and engaging audio content that will resonate with our community. That will always be something we need to focus on. This doesn’t mean you need to have a professional and polished audio clip, but it does mean your clip should provide help — as well as inspire discussion.
That said, once you’ve created a helpful wave that you think can create a meaningful dialog, here are some strategies to help you earn more ears (and more importantly) more conversation.
One simple way to get more visibility for your waves is to use hashtags that your target audience is using. Spend time researching hashtags that relate to your business to discover what types of audio conversations are happening.
Just because you’re using certain hashtags on Twitter doesn’t mean the same hashtag conversations are happening on Anchor. Right now, you might need to select slightly more generic hashtags since Anchor is a newer social network. The only way to find out hashatag usage is to keep checking as this network evolves.
Social media monitoring is one of the most important jobs for those of us working in social media management. It’s how we uncover important conversations that matter to the businesses we support.
It’s also a time-consuming aspect of our jobs – and reason why we set-up streams and dashboards to help us focus on the most important online conversations.
Live streaming video content lives on — so make sure it’s valuable enough to re-share and re-package.
This means, you need to be selective about what you decide to stream. And you need to be thinking about how the video can provide value for those who didn’t view it live.
It’s not just about getting more replays, it’s about re-packaging the live stream to serve those who missed it. And you should always think about ways to upcycle that live stream video into channels and mediums that new audiences will find useful.
Here are five simple ways you can upcycle your high-value live streaming content:
Social media monitoring can be expensive (and time-consuming) so it’s important to be strategic with what keywords you choose to listen to.
Here are some various ways to approach keyword monitoring for your business:
If you’re a well-known company (and mentioned often online), you should track the common misspellings and typos of your name.
Other branded keywords important to your business may also include:
To learn about variations on these keywords (as well as common typos or misspellings), talk with your search engine marketing (SEM). Ask them if they have recommendations on what branded keywords should get tracked online.
There is nothing wrong with using social channels to sell.
In fact, there are many companies that do a great job of selling on social (e.g. Moz, Hubspot, Social Media Examiner). The difference between companies that sell well on social — and those that don’t — is based on the community they formed online.
Brands with thriving communities get more attention, more engagement and more visibility with their social posts. If you want to build a thriving online community, stop using your social channels to sell.
Here are a few reasons why selling on social channels can stunt your community growth …
Selling constantly on social channels is annoying (like a stream of sophomoric selfies)
Some companies think that every tweet should direct people back to their landing page or a salesy blog post. They think every Facebook post should be about themselves. They think that a constant stream of self-serving social posts will eventually reel in a customer. The problem is that those salesy social posts rarely get engagement — and often just get ignored.
You can’t lead an online community without listening to them.
The trouble is that we struggle to make time to listen – and don’t always have the best tools to help us listen smarter. Besides, we have content to produce, social posts to schedule, blogs to write, meetings to attend, campaigns to work on, and reports to run.
However, If we want to be better community builders, then we need to be intentional about listening.
Here are a few reasons why we struggle with listening:
The trouble with listening is that there is no immediate ROI.
One reason why we have trouble listening to our communities is that we have nothing to show for it when we’re done. Listening is passive – and we’ve produced nothing at the end. If you spend a full day listening to your community, you have nothing to show for it. Well, you could produce a canned “social mention” report with word clouds, social mention counts, and sentiment analysis – but that’s just an automated report that anyone can run. Those automated reports only help you with listening, they don’t listen for you.
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