It is important that your Instagram account is set up as a business profile. With that, you will have access to Insights, a tool to help you understand your audience and the effectiveness of your posts, Stories, and Reels. That information will help you grow.
Check out your Insights to see how your account is preforming. Here are some things you can see there:
Before you put together your strategy for the New Year, here are some quick audit tips. Then, you will have a better understanding of where you need to focus your efforts in 2022.
List your social media platforms:
Do you check each platform regularly for comments?
Is your information up to date?
Are there other places that your ideal client might get information regularly?
Do you know the admins, editors, etc.? It’s time to clean the account up.
Social Media bios help potential customers find you. They can also be the first impression a customer will have about your brand. Make it a good one!
Two factors to keep in mind are the platform and your audience. If you are writing your bio for LinkedIn, it will be more formal and professional than if you are writing it for Facebook or Instagram. For all platforms think about keywords that your ideal customer will be searching for when you write the bio. Someone should read your bio and have a clear understanding of what you will do for them.
Setting SMART goals is an excellent way to focus your social media efforts. Creating goals for the month or quarter helps to dial down your message and measure if it is making an impact. Set aside some time to brainstorm your social media goals. Next look at the goals to see if they meet the criterial below.
• Specific — I want more Facebook followers is not a specific goal. However, I want to increase my Facebook followers by 500 or I want to increase the signups for my newsletter coming from Facebook by 50 percent are specific goals.
I know that most of you aren’t ready to think about the holidays. Guess what? Now is the perfect time to start making a plan. We have no idea what this holiday season will look like, but it is a safe bet that people will be making many online purchases.
Here are the things you should be doing now to set up for your success later.
1. Confirm that all your information is up to date and consistent across social media.
2. Try to build brand awareness through your social media. Use different social media sites like Instagram, Reels Stories, and ads.
The last year has taught business owners the importance of connecting with their customer base. They can do this through social media. Most social media algorithms reward regular postings and engagements. That is important if you want people to find and get updates about your business.
Facebook is a great way to keep your customers informed about new information like changes to your hours. Customers will be more inclined to visit a business that has up to date information. You really do not want people showing up at your business when it is closed because the hours were wrong.
Now more than ever it’s important to have a presence on social media. You can DIY your social media with free tools. There is so much information out there, so here is a quick guide to get you started.
There is no right way to post social media content. Truthfully, you must figure out a system that works for you and be consistent. The best way to stop being overwhelmed is to have a plan. Here are a few tips that might help.
People buy from businesses that they know, like, and trust. One way to increase your trust factor is through Facebook Reviews. Customers can recommend your business to others and leave comments about it.
If you don’t have a review tab on your page, go to Settings then Templates and Tabs. You want to turn on reviews so that they will show up. Now that you have confirmed that your review tab is visible, it’s time to ask for some reviews.
They are the magic that can make the difference for your site to be found on the tenth page of a Google search or the first page. Blogs are the most powerful tool to building a site found on Google.
Ok. So, you’ve spent all this time setting up Facebook, Instagram, or whatever platform you’re on. You have all the relevant information about your business on your page. Now what?
You need to think about what message you want to convey and how you go about it. Yes, you want to let people what your business, but no one wants to be sold to all the time. If all you are doing is trying to sell, you’re probably not seeing a lot of engagement on your social media. You want to give them the answer to “why” they should be doing business with you.
When creating a logo specifically for your business, it is very important that you brand your logo to be able to stand alone and reflect the mission and vision of your business. If you haven’t worked on the mission and vision of your company, that needs to be worked on first. Once you have the mission and vision, it’s a matter of visualizing what your logo should represent because a logo speaks for you when there aren’t any words to tell them about your business.
It is important that your Instagram account is set up as a business profile. With that you will have access to Insights, a tool to help you understand your audience and the effectiveness of your posts. That information will help you grow.
Check out your Insights to see how your posts are preforming. Here are some things you can see there:
What is IGTV? IGTV is an app associated with Instagram that allows you to create a channel for posting and sharing long form videos. Think of it as YouTube for Instagram. There are several different ways to promote your business on IGTV. This is helpful if your ideal customer is primarily on Instagram.
IGTV can be used to recycle previously published video content, like material that you have already used on other platforms. Videos should be vertical as they are geared toward mobile devices. If your content is horizontal, you will need to convert it.
You can’t make a plan for the future without an understanding of where you are right now. Before you put together your strategy for the New Year, let me give you some quick audit tips. Then, you will have a better understanding of where you need to focus your efforts.
Some things that you need to look at across all accounts.
Do you have a social media plan for the holidays? Now is the time to plan and schedule it. Pull out a calendar and decide what dates are important to your holiday sales strategy. Some dates that you may want to include are Black Friday- 11/23, Small Business Saturday-11/24, and Cyber Monday- 11/26. What other information might you want your customers to know? Do you have special hours and holiday shipping deadlines?
You are probably wondering why I am saying “Change Your Password!” instead of, “You want me to change my passwords? Really?”
The reason for this month’s column is to encourage you to get into the habit of changing your passwords on all your accounts. Why? There are a multitude of reasons which run the gamut of malware, ransomware, spam, hackers, and the list goes on and on.
