To quote Stuart Smalley (a fictional character from Saturday Night Live), “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it people like me.”
Albert Einstein (one of the greatest minds of the 20 century) said “Never memorize something you can look up.”
While I’m good, and I’m smart — I do not even attempt to memorize things “I can look up.” Especially in the realm of the works of social media.
Things change ALL THE TIME!!!!
And I’m a nerd — really I am — and I will spend quite some time diving into the annual reports and summaries and knowledge but I will not attempt to memorize everything, because I KNOW that things will change.
In my private program, (you can find out more about that here) I have a running resource of what’s new. Here are some of those useful resources:
- In November 2020 AgoraPulse published their opinion of the 45 best social media analytics tools. (NOTE — since this was published be AgoraPulse – there may be a slight bias). Find the AgoraPulse Report here.
- The folks at Sprout Social maintain an “Always Up-to-Date Guide to Social Media Image Sizes.” This is updated every few months. As we all know that the “best” size can change for any platform I always advise my clients to review their platforms regularly (from both phone and laptop), and ALWAYS leave a bit of a border on any image you create (so … if it does change … there’s a chance you might not get information cut off). You can find the Sprout Social guide here.
- As of this writing (November 2020) I’m expecting to see all the “year-end” and “new year” data coming out within the next 30-60 days, As a geek, I’ll enjoy pouring through all the information, and as a consultant, I’ll be reading with a thought to what my clients need to know (because for the average business person, some of it is kind of dry and boring). If you would love to see the information I pull out and highlight – ask me about my private program.
And as a side note — I know many start-ups that “bootstrap” their social media. If you are looking to learn from free YouTube channels or webinars — my best piece of advice that I want to have folks understand is
PLEASE LOOK AT THE DATES on any “free” resources. If it’s over 6 months old just walk away. There was an article published listing 15 social media training courses, this was published in 2020. It listed a course on YouTube, that was published in 2016, so please, always check the dates. (I was going to list it as a resource — but not with a course that is over 4 years old).
If you’d like to always keep up with the latest changes happening in the social media world, I can share the 4 podcasts, 5 Facebook groups, 2 newsletters, and 1 videocast that I watch or you can save time and discover the summaries that I post in my private consulting program. (Psssst — you might want to send me a private message and ask about the year-end special I have going on).