It’s 2020 and the importance of video content is not going away. It's favored by all the algorithms and people will stop their scroll to watch it. Now is the time to make a plan to regularly incorporate video into your social media strategy. It’s pretty easy and you can do it right from your phone.
Social Media Bios help potential customers find you. They can also be the first impression a customer will have about your brand. It’s important to make a good impression.
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.
It’s that time of year again. Are you ready? You might be thinking it’s too early, but it’s not. This is the time to be building your audience and making plans for the upcoming season. It’s important to grow your audience as much as you can before Thanksgiving. Or before; the entire week of Thanksgiving has become a sales week.
The best way to create engagement on social medial is to be consistent. As a business owner, that can be a tall order. You can make it easier on yourself if you have a process. If you sit down and plan for the next few weeks or months, then you can batch schedule your social media.
Even local businesses can reap the benefits of maintaining a social media presence. If you haven’t, now’s the time. Here are a few facts: 78% of the US population has a social media profile and 97% percent of consumers aged 18 to 34 read online reviews. Just to bring this local, there is a Facebook group, called 422 Families, where people regularly ask for recommendations about local businesses. That group has over 7,700 members.
Video is becoming an essential part of social media content. It's favored by all the algorithms and people will stop their scroll to watch it. That’s why businesses should try to use video when they can. The great thing about video is that you can do it right from your phone.
Here are some helpful ideas for using video as social media content.
Facebook has signaled that their algorithm is changing again. If you’ve been thinking about starting a Facebook group, now might be the time to do it. Facebook is favoring more personal engagement, so your page might not reach as many people as it has in the past. Here are some things to consider about creating a group.
Give people an incentive for joining your group. You could offer early bird discounts to the members or previews for new products. Then once they are in, give them more information about your products and services.
Recently, I watched a video on YouTube on a subject of interest to me and after watching the video, decided to click on the “infamous link” below the video. Part of the reason for clicking on it was to experience the engagement funnel with this individual, as well as see how long she would send emails to me about it. Well, it is two weeks later, and I am still getting emails from her daily. They have taken different directions along the way.
Have you thought about Instagram for lead generation? If you haven’t, I have some hacks to generate leads from your existing followers. As you grow your business account you can use these strategies going forward.
Your profile should have the following:
• A picture that reflects your brand.
• Your bio should be concise and clear about what you offer people.
• A link in the bio — your website or a link to a newsletter signup.
Should I be using hashtags? That’s a question I hear a lot. The answer depends on the platform that you are using. Hashtags are used to index keywords for search results. They are more prevalent on some social media platforms than others.
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.
