Being Social on Instagram is good for Business

Instagram is a Social Network, so it goes without saying that being social on Instagram is good for business.

So How do you get social on this platform in a way that will help your business? Here is a guide to help you get social and use all the opportunities available to connect with your audience and grow your followers organically.

Remember, being social is about getting Instagram to share your content, but it’s also about building a community and connecting with your key audience. It’s an opportunity to build a relationship with your audience.

Post Regularly

Post 2 – 3 times a day during peak times, including on Instagram stories. This keeps you in your audiences feed and interacting with the platform.

Reply to all comments on your posts

When you reply to every comment on your posts, it show’s Instagram that you are engaged with your audience. And don’t worry about the bot comments, reply to them too, every comment counts.

Go check out people who liked your content

Especially important for accounts looking to grow, make sure you go on over to like and comment on the latest post of those who liked or commented on your post. This helps build your rapport with that follower and shows them that you’re interested in them too.

Like and comment on new followers content

Do the same for people who come and follow your page for the first time. Visit new followers feed and like and comment on a most recent post. Don’t feel obligated to follow the person back, unless you want to that is.

Follow relevant Hashtags

While Hashtags are a great tool to help get your content out to your ideal audience, they’re also used by your ideal audience in their posts.

Go ahead and follow Hashtags that are relevant to your ideal market so they appear in your news feed. Then you can like and comment on posts relating to Hashtags you use.

Don’t just like, comment!

Liking a post doesn’t get you far in the brownie points department. Instagram likes to see you commenting on posts. Why do you think all those bots do it? But unlike those pesky bot comments, be genuine and engaging.

Freshen up your Following List

Instagram understands that as a society, we’re regularly meeting new people and occasionally, unfriending others. So, for this reason, it’s good to regularly follow new accounts and occasionally, do a clean out of the accounts you’re following.

Unfollow accounts that don’t come up in your feed anymore, aren’t aligned with your brand or message or don’t interest you.

Follow whoever you like. But if they’re related to your key audience, or something that interests you, that’s great too.

Be social in Stories

I could do a whole other blog just on Instagram Stories. It’s a platform that’s just taken off! While it was a slow start, stories are where it’s at. To take advantage of the platform, or to really connect with your key audience, especially influencers, make sure you’re in there commenting and replying to stories. It’s a great way to connect and form a relationship with people.

If you’re a brand that is looking to use Influencer engagement

This is a big one for those that are looking at influencer engagement. Ready?

Write a list of 5-10 influencers you want to work with. Follow all of them. Then every day, visit their Instagram feed once or twice a day and like and comment on the most recent post or story. Start building a relationship with them, so when you do go to make contact about some influencer work, they already have a relationship with you and will be more approachable.

Check out Linktr.ee

Linktr.ee is an awesome tool that allows you to have multiple options in your bio link. No more constantly changing your bio link when you want to direct people to a product, blog, your Facebook page, a competition or somewhere else. Linktr.ee gives you options and has been shown to increase conversion rates. Check it out www.linktr.ee

Never, Ever, Ever

Never, Ever, Ever, use a bot or third party app to comment for you or follow and unfollow accounts for you. Doing this is just asking for trouble. While these programs have been around for a while, it’s becoming more and more unpopular. but most importantly, Instagram is constantly working on shutting these bots down. So stay away from all of these types of schemes.

And while we’re on it, don’t buy followers. Just don’t. Those fake followers aren’t your key audience, they won’t help you in the long run and you have no guarantee of how long they’ll last.

Home

October 2, 2018October 2, 2018

10 Tips for Instagram Success

If you’re finding Instagram a hard social channel to get into, here are my 10 tips for Instagram Success.

Tip 1 – Post Regularly

A regular posting schedule, between 2 – 3 posts a day is the optimal number of posts to boost your reach and get your content seen on Instagram.

Tip 2 – Post during peak times

Posting at the times when your audience is online is key. This will ensure that your content is served up while your audience is online, instead of your post getting lost.

Tip 4 – Instagram Stories is your friend

Instagram Stories is getting bigger and bigger. Did you know there are some accounts that just do Instagram stories? Make sure you’re posting on both Instagram itself and stories daily. And yes, your 3 posts a day can be one story and two posts…

Tip 5 – Be Social

It sounds like a strange one doesn’t it. But it’s not. Instagram is a social network, so the more you are on it, socializing, the better. For more information on how to be social on Instagram for your business, read my blog – Being Social on Instagram is good for Business.

Tip 6 – Mix it up

Post a variety of content, ranging from product/service posts, personal posts, meme type posts, etc. depending on your audience, to ensure you’re keeping your audience interested and they don’t feel like they’re seeing the same thing from you all the time.

Tip 7 – Clean out your friends’ list

I touch on this on another blog, but a regular clean out of who you’re following is good. It show’s Instagram that you’re engaged with the platform. A regular clean out it a good thing.

Tip 8 – Hashtags

Hashtags are your BFF when it comes to Instagram. Not only should you use Hashtags for your posts, but following Hashtags that are relevant to your industry and your audience is a great way to keep in touch. Follow Hashtags that are relevant to you, or that your ideal audience use and like and comment on posts that come up in your feed.

To find out more on how Hashtags can work for you on Instagram, read my blog – Why are Hashtags so important on Instagram.

Tip 9 – Reply to every Comment

Like and reply to every comment you receive on a post. This show’s Instagram that you’re interacting with the people who are interacting with you and improves your reach. Posts that are commented on (and replied to) within minutes of posting get better reach.

Tip 10 – Be genuine

No one likes a fake account or one that’s constantly selling to them. Be genuine, show some personality and enjoy the social side of the social network.

Home

October 2, 2018October 2, 2018

Why are Hashtags so Important on Instagram?

And how to make the most of Hashtags for your brand!

If you’re new to Instagram or are just getting into Instagram for business, then you might be wondering what the fuss is all about when it comes to Hashtags.

Unlike Facebook, Instagram allows you an opportunity to get into the feed of people who don’t follow you by using Hashtags.

Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags per post so you can reach more people. But how do you make the most of Hashtags? Here are a few simple tips to get started.

Where to put them

There is a forever changing debate about the best spot to place your Hashtags. The general placement is either in the post itself or in the first comment (or a mixture of both, with 3 hashtags in the post and the rest in the comment).

There’s no one way that works and it may be a trial and error with your audience, but it also depends on the scheduling tool you use to what you can do. I personally post one or two hashtags in the post, then put the rest in the first comment.

What type of Hashtags should I use?

This is the age-old question. What type of hashtags should you use? It really depends on your type of account, your ideal market, and your location.

Look for Hashtags that are relevant to your industry, your ideal audience, and your location. Using a mixture of all three is the most effective method for reaching your ideal audience.

It’s ideal to have a mix of hashtags of varying popularity, you should pick hashtags that range from a few thousand to a few 100 thousand.

Avoid using hashtags in the millions, unless you’re a larger account.

What Hashtags to avoid

Keep away from Hashtags that are single words like #happiness and #coffee these types of one word hashtags tend to attract a lot of fake followers and accounts that use bots to gain followers, which are best to avoid.

Although Instagram came out and declared once and for all that shadowbanning wasn’t a ‘thing’, there are still Hashtags out there that you should avoid. Don’t use hashtags that have been hidden from the Instagram Community.

Hashtags are regularly reported by Instagram users for inappropriate content and will be hidden by Instagram. Instagram will alert you when the Hashtag you’re viewing is restricted, by displaying a message like this one when you look at the recent tab for that particular Hashtag.

The list of banned Hashtag is forever changing, so it’s best to regularly check by searching each hashtag directly within Instagram.

Mix it up

It’s a good idea to use a variety of hashtags and mix it up. Don’t use the same 30 hashtags for each post.

The reason? It shows Instagram that you’re putting thought into your posts and you’re being social. Instagram is a social network after all.

Have a handful of hashtags that relate directly to your product/brand, then create a Hashtag bank.

A Hashtag bank is a selection of hashtags you can use for particular types of posts so you have a selection of Hashtags ready to go for each type of post. This will help you to use a variety of Hashtags which will keep Instagram happy.

Make sure you’re regularly keeping an eye out for new hashtags that are up and coming or relate to your industry, to ensure you’re using the most relevant hashtags for your industry or your ideal audience. There are alway’s up and coming new Hashtags or trends in hashtags, so regularly research new ones.

Connect with Others

Hashtags are also a great tool to reach out and keep in touch with your ideal audience but commenting on other posts using Hashtags. To read more on this head over to my blog: Being Social on Instagram is good for Business.

Hashtags are a great way to help you get yourself and your brand out and seen on Instagram. Instagram is a fabulous social network, so Hashtags alone aren’t the only answer, being social is a big key to Instagram success.

For more tips on how to make the most of Instagram for your business, read my blog: 10 Tips to Instagram Success.

Home

August 31, 2018September 3, 2018

3 Keys to Successful advertising on Facebook

Facebook, she ain’t what she used to be. ‘Am I right?’

Do you find that your reach and engagement is becoming less and less?

These days, the key to Facebook success is becoming less and less obvious. The forever changing Facebook algorithm, the changes around what is seen by who and Facebook wanting more meaningful content to be shared and viewed.

Even the best Social Media Marketers, the ones with the fabulous content and killer reach will tell you that Facebook advertising plays a pivotal role in growing your brand and getting conversions.

If you’ve dabbled in advertising and aren’t sure if you’re ‘doing it right’ or if you didn’t see the results you were hoping for, then keep reading, because I’m going to share with you 3 pretty important little nuggets which will lead you to the road to Successful advertising on Facebook.

Disclaimer: Sometimes, even the best planned out campaigns can crash and burn. And that’s a-ok! You know why? Because it’s a learning curve, it’s a process of learning about your key audience and the people you are targeting, it’s about refining your messaging and your audience in your campaign to get the results you desire. All valuable lessons.

Now, onto the nuggets…

1. Know your audience

Now when I say know your audience, I don’t mean know them personally. You don’t need to know what’s happening with Tiffany’s cat. I mean that you need to get to know them a little more as a group of people and their interests. Evaluate who is interacting with your brand and what they like. Get to know them so you know what they will like and what is more likely to catch their eye when they’re scrolling through their newsfeed.

You can do this by using the Audience insights feature in your Facebook Ads Manager. Delve into the interests of your audience, look at the other pages they follow, where they are, what they like and you’ll soon have a better understanding of what appeals to them.

2. Plan your campaign in advance

Seems simple right? It kinda is, but not many business owners plan their advertising ahead of time.

When you are mapping our your social media and your plan for your sales, you should also plan out your advertising campaign as well.

If you have a plan for when your sale is; when it will end and what your message is going to be, why not include the additional step of where you want to advertise the information and when as well. It makes sense. This will give you an outline of when you need the ad to be prepared by and ready to press publish in time for your campaign, without advertising the sale, tickets, event, promotion, as a last minute side note.

Why?

Because advertising is so much more than a rushed afterthought. Advertising, when used effectively can be the final key to the success of what it is you are promoting.

While people talk about the ‘good old days’ where you could post an image of a new product on your social media and boom, sales would start rolling in and you’ve got yourself an instant business success, reality is, even back in the day, you still had to work hard for that success and to be noticed on social media. It wasn’t a definite that if you launched a new business on Facebook, that you’d succeed.

Advertising on Facebook done correctly can generate those sales for you.

3. Measure, Report, Repeat

Maybe it’s the inner data nerd in me, or maybe it’s just good practice, but by golly you gotta look at the results of your advertising campaign. Monitor it throughout the campaign, then analyze the results post campaign. Look at your audience, how was your targeting, could you further refine your audience by looking at the results. What was your ROI, did you meet your advertising goals? What worked, what didn’t? All of this is key pieces to nailing your Facebook advertising campaign because without analyzing the results, you can’t improve your future campaigns.

What next?

I know what you’re thinking, this is great, but now what do I do?

Well, to help you on your journey to Facebook Advertising success, I’ve put together a pretty special Free template for you.

This template will help you map out your Facebook Advertising campaigns and will help you better understand the why of your campaign, who you want to target and the results you’re looking to gain out of your campaign.

It also gives you a place to think about your budget, timeframe and style of ad campaign, so that you can then start to bring your ad together in Facebook Ads Manager.

Download Now

Click here to receive your free Facebook Advertising template document for free.

Need help?

As always, I am here to help. If you would like support in creating and managing your Facebook advertising campaigns, please reach out.

I have an Audit and advertising start-up package, then an ongoing monthly advertising package which are affordable and will provide you with the tools and support to map out your advertising campaigns, with the added bonus of an experienced Facebook advertiser to support you and manage your campaigns.

Visit my contact us page, or email me at kristen@simplifyadmin.com.au

Home

July 12, 2018July 12, 2018

What’s Your Brand?

Seems like a strange question right? What’s your brand?

My brand is all about being: Kind; friendly, approachable, understanding, helpful, committed, hard working, dependable.

These are mine and my businesses core values. What’s yours?

How do you show your core values to others?

The best way I show my core values is through my branding and my actions.

It’s how I communicate, how I present myself, how I share information and how I talk to others, in person, on the phone, in emails and on social media.

You are representing your brand in everything you do online and in your socials, your replies to comments on social media, they way you conduct yourself in your stories, your replies to reviews on your products, the way you speak to others in Facebook groups, it’s all a reflection on your brand.

So before you reply to that review, rant on your stories, speak negatively to someone else in a Facebook group, talk to others about a negative experience, ask yourself first;

“Is this on brand”

“is this response representing my brand and how I want to be seen?”

If the answer is no, then write it, read it back, get it off your chest, then delete it.

Because that one negative comment, one ranting email, one frustrated story, one rude comment on social media, can be seen by anyone, anywhere and they won’t get the message that you’ve been trying to portray in your branding, they’ll see something completely different.

So Stop. Think. Act.

And always stay on brand.

What’s your brand?

Home

June 29, 2018July 12, 2018

Why doesn’t Facebook like my Ad Image?

So you’ve created your first Facebook ad, or your a few ads in but you’re wondering, Why doesn’t Facebook like my Ad Image?

Facebook collects data from all the ads run every day across there platform and have access to a large amount of information about what ads are most successful.
From this, Facebook has determined that ads with images which contain little copy, also know as text overlay, perform better.

Because of this, Facebook judges your images by the amount of text they contain for your ads and will rank the ad porly if it has too much text.

Facebook does this because it want’s your ads to be a success, but how much text is too much?

Tools to help you

Facebook understands that it’s hard to figure out if your image is going to pass the 20% rule, so it has created a Text Overlay tool you can use to check your image before you upload it to Facebook in your ad campaign.

Here is a link to Facebook’s Text Overlay tool so you can try it yourself: https://www.facebook.com/ads/tools/text_overlay

Also, here are a few examples of what Facebook sees to be ok, a little too much text and way too much text.

Image Text OK

Your ad will run normally.

Image Text Low

Your ad’s reach may be slightly lower.

Image Text Medium

Your ad’s reach may be much lower.

Image Text High

Your ad may not run.

Need help?

If you are having trouble with your Facebook Advertising or need assistance creating stand out images for your ads, get in touch, I’d love to help you create captivating, appealing and clickable Facebook ads for your business.

Home

June 14, 2018July 12, 2018

7 Top Tips for Advertising on Facebook

Here are a few quick tips to help you get your Facebook advertising going from a flop to a raging success:

Tip 1 Install Facebook Pixel on your website

Facebook’s Pixel tool is an essential part of advertising on Facebook. It allows you to deep dive into the type of people who are visiting your website and purchasing your products.

It then allows you to re-target the people who have been on your site and haven’t made a purchase. You can also use your Facebook Pixel to create a lookalike audience based on the people who have visited your website.

Tip 2 Get to know your Google Analytics

Now I know what you’re thinking “but we’re talking about advertising on Facebook”.

Facebook is only one piece of your marketing funnel. To effectively market to your audience, you need to understand where all your website visitors are coming from and their demographics also.

Tip 3 Understand your ideal audience

When you keep your audience in Facebook Advertising broad, you’ll have two possible outcomes: you’ll be less likely to find your tribe, or you’ll find them but it will cost you a lot to do so.

The reason for this is that everyone is different, and although your target market may be Women between the ages of 25-45, this is still a really broad category.

Getting to know both your ideal audience and the people who are already visiting your website, is the key to narrowing down on your target market for advertising on Facebook, which will get you better results or a better price.

Tip 4 Don’t be afraid to try a few things

Everyone is different and what appeals to one person, may not appeal to others. So, it’s always best to split-test your ads so that you can see what appeals to your audience. You can split test the copy, images etc.

Tip 5 When you have a campaign running which is generating traffic to your website, make sure you have a re-targeting campaign in place

Why? Because if it’s the first time someone has seen your business, they aren’t likely to purchase from you on the first visit to your website.

Having a re-targeting campaign so that they see you again in their news feed, gives them another opportunity to see your business and get to know you before making that purchase.

Tip 6 Have goals set up so you can track the effectiveness of your campaign

It’s one thing to have an add that is generating click through’s to your website, but it’s a completely different thing to have an ad that’s also converting into sales.

When you set up event tracking, you can effectively track not only the click through’s, but the conversions from your campaigns also.

Sometimes an ad with low click throughs might be generating more sales, so it’s always best to monitor both.

Tip 7 When in doubt, hire a Facebook Advertising professional

Facebook advertising can be tricky. If you’ve tried the above tricks and just can’t seem to get the results you think you should be, then it might be time to either do a course in Facebook Advertising or hire a Facebook Advertising professional.

A professional should run an audit of your existing socials and analytics, provide you with recommendations, set up audiences for you to use and run a campaign for you, providing you with a report at the conclusion of the campaign.

When searching for an advertising professional, make sure you ask them their results, ask them to see ads they’ve run in the past for clients, and even ask for testimonials from past or current clients.

Home