You’ve been posting to your business’ social media accounts, but is that effort actually making any impact? The best way you can find out is through undertaking a social media audit.
What is a social media audit?
People can often automatically feel apprehensive when they hear the word ‘audit.’ No one really looks forward to doing one. They can be tedious and time-consuming. However, they don’t have to be that bad.
Undertaking a social media audit allows you to see what’s working, what’s not and how and where you can improve. You want to know if you have a positive return on investment (ROI) and whether you’re meeting your social media goals. To make sure you’re not wasting your money or time, you should complete a social media audit.
How can you do a social media audit?
What do you need to include when you’re doing an audit? The first thing you’ll need to do is ensure you have a single spreadsheet where you will compile your results.
Within your spreadsheet, you’ll want to list your social media metrics. Some metrics include:
Followers
Engagement
Reach
Mentions
Referrals
Make sure you’re measuring this on a consistent timeframe, whether that be monthly, fortnightly or weekly. If this is not done, your results will not be accurate.
Following these steps will help you to know how successfully each of your social media accounts are performing, where you need to invest more effort and how you can change your strategies.
Got any social media auditing tips? Let us know in the comments.
Social media is a great way to keep engaged with customers. But do you know how you can use social media to improve customer retention? After all, it is beneficial to retain your customers, rather than trying to find new customers. In fact, Market Metrics found it is 60% to 70% easier to convert an existing customer than it is to convert a prospect.
So how exactly can you use social media to increase your customer retention?
1. Know who your audience is
The most important part of customer retention is knowing your audience. If you don’t know who you’re communicating with your message may not be as well received.
Use analytics tools to find out necessary data about your audience. You’ll want to find information such as their social ID, and pair it with information such as their email address, and compile a customer database. Note consumer behaviour such as how they interact with your organisation and their purchasing behaviour.
Once you know this information, you will be able to post more accurate and personalised social media posts, which you customers will actually be interested in.
2. Be easy to find
You’re never going to end up with loyal customers if people can’t find your social media accounts in the first place.
You need to make sure your business is active on the social media pages you have. Sometimes it’s too hard to be active on every single social media channel, it’s often too time-consuming.
To avoid this problem, make sure you know what social media platforms your customers are using. Sure, Facebook is one of the most popular platforms, but is it what your target audience uses? Maybe they are more active on platforms such as LinkedIn or Instagram. Look at where your brand name is being mentioned, and make sure to stay active on those platforms.
To make customers aware of your social media platforms, make sure to include social media buttons on your website. Even consider having links to your social media pages in your email signature so existing contacts will know to follow you.
3. Share testimonials
Word of mouth is extremely powerful. In fact, word of mouth marketing has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. This is because people trust the recommendations of their peers over the advertisements of a company. So if you get a glowing testimonial online, why not take the opportunity to share it? If people have taken a particularly creative photo of your product, consider sharing it on Instagram. Remember to tag the original person in the caption so they can see you have shared their content. Sharing positive testimonials will help increase your social proof and help with customer retention.
4. Have good customer service
There’s nothing more annoying than trying to get in contact with a company, and hearing no response, or receiving a rude, unhelpful response. That’s why you need to ensure your business has good customer service.
Facebook now displays response times, so you can get an idea of how quickly a business will respond to your query. Followers will be sure to appreciate receiving a timely response to their questions. While it may not be realistic to have someone looking after your social media account 24/7, make sure someone in your business is monitoring your accounts during business hours.
Make sure that all your responses to customers answer the question. If you can’t answer the question in comments, invite the customer to directly message you, and you can then message them one-on-one.
It’s also important to ensure your responses are always polite. If customers are leaving angry comments, it’s often tempting to leave an angry comment in response. However, this could potentially damage your brand’s reputation and end up with you losing customers. Always remember to remain polite while responding to customers on social media.
Your customers will look favourably upon your brand if you are known for having consistent, quick and positive customer service.
5. Measure
As with any strategy, the key to success is to analyse your data to see if you’re achieving your goals. Metrics you’ll want to measure include:
Engagement
Conversions
Customer acquisition
Participation
Are you posting on the right social media platforms? Do you have customer loyalty programs in place, and if so, how does it compare to the competition? Do you respond to customers and engage with them online? These are the questions you should be asking yourself when analysing your data. This will help you to see what you can improve to increase your customer retention on social media.
Got any other social media customer retention tips? Let us know in the comments.
...No, not that one. Luckily enough for you, this story does not involve creepy clowns (though I’m happy I have been the catalyst to your coulrophobia).
This is a first-hand account of what happened with a client of mine who we don’t engage with for social media management services but maybe in hindsight, we probably should have had that conversation.
This business, currently signed with us for the services trifecta (SEO, AdWords and Web Development), uses Facebook as a tool to connect with its external stakeholders - like so many organisations before it. Further, they use Facebook as a platform for their staff to liaise one-on-one with their customers through work-centric Facebook profiles, i.e. setup specifically for their work.
For the most part, the staff manage their business page pretty well. The standard good things like engaging content and timely posts with a high response rate (nice!) - which is almost all that we saw, it was disappointing that some of the staff were lacking conversions from connections to sales. This leads us to the dark-side, what we didn’t get to see behind the scenes is the troubling part.
The day came when we were given a tip-off that a key staff member of the business had the intentions of jumping ship to a competitor. After assessing the situation, it was found that they were funnelling valuable leads to the other company via their work Facebook account. Before we could act, the all-important login details (email and password) were changed and access was restricted to the business, our client. Luckily enough, with some sleuthing from both Matter Solutions and the client, we were able to work with Facebook to retrieve the leads and deactivate the rogue-staff-member’s profile from being used again.
Though the staff member’s actions are questionable (to say the least) it raises critically important points that every organisation/workplace should learn from this situation...
If you’ve got a business with a social media account, make sure you:
Do not set up personal social media profiles for commercial use (other than page management): Doing so means that parties involved risk breaching the terms and conditions set by social media platforms and can carry legal action and heavy financial penalties.
Know who has access: With personal profiles, it makes it too difficult for companies to have tracking and clarity of employee activities. Say for instance, an employee was conducting unethically, how would you know? What would you do? Make sure you always know who has access to your business’ Facebook accounts, and set up different publishing settings for different employees.
Change passwords: Frequently changing the password for your social media accounts will help give you an extra level of security. If a staff member has left and once had access to your accounts, this prevents them from being able to access your account and leave any damaging posts or steal valuable information.
Report violations to the platform: You’ve tried to put preventative measures in place, but a staff member has still gone rogue and got access to your social media account. What do you do now? If you can’t reason with the staff member, your best choice is to contact the social media platform. They will investigate any breach of security to see if the community standards have been violated.
Make sure you watch KPIs: Conduct out of the ordinary will often show up when reviewing the numbers. A common question we hear is “Why are you managing 140 contacts but not one is converting?”.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda
Collectively, we managed to resolve the issue quickly and save the day but my point still stands - this wouldn’t have happened if the professionals got involved earlier. If you are a small/medium business owner, don’t think that social media management is a matter of posting content and responding to comments. It’s much more than that, especially if you want your employees using it for business purposes.
So what setup have you got? Does your social media shape up? Let us know on Facebook or Twitter. Need help? Contact us (and may the force be with you).
Whether they mean to or not, people often give bad advice. This can happen no matter what industry you’re in. If you’re new to social media, it can be easy to follow bad advice to try and get ahead.
So we’ve sorted through the good and bad advice and found the worst advice that could actually be damaging your social media presence, rather than helping.
Here are five pieces of advice you really shouldn't follow:
1. You need to be active on every platform
When you don’t really have a social media plan, it can be easy to think you need to have a presence on every platform. That means you’ll get more followers and more traffic to your website right? This isn’t necessarily the case.
What often happens when businesses try to stay active across every platform is they get spread thin. It’s time consuming maintaining numerous active social media platforms. Consider what you want to achieve with each social media platform. If you’re not reaching those goals, or you’re struggling to get any engagement, it may not be worth having an account.
Instead, dedicate your time to a few social media platforms. Know your target market and what platform they are most likely to use. If you’re in an industry such as recruitment, you may find more success on a platform such as LinkedIn, which isn’t generally the obvious preferred social media platform.
2. You should buy followers
Everyone wants to have lots of likes or followers. However, it takes a lot of time and effort to build up your number of followers. Why not quickly boost that number by buying followers? Sure, it saves you time, but is it really worth it?
Social media platforms often have strict policies regarding purchased followers. Facebook Business has a page dedicated to authentic activity, which outlines the platforms policy surrounding purchased likes. If your account is involved in any suspicious activity, you could end up suspended, which could be detrimental to your business.
Social media platforms, as well as Google, take engagement levels into account. If your account has thousands of likes, but no comments, it will instantly look suspicious. If you wanted to buy followers to increase your ranking on Google, think again.
To avoid your account being suspended or even deleted, it’s best to do things the old fashioned way. This will allow you to build relationships with real people, rather than having a bunch of spam bots as followers.
3. Always use hashtags
Hashtags are great, particularly on Twitter and Instagram. It’s a helpful way to join in an existing conversation and find people who are interested in the same topic. Businesses can even take advantage of hashtags and build their own branded hashtag.
However, you don’t want to inundate your updates with hashtags. You want to make sure people can still understand what you’re trying to say in your status. Often accounts, particularly on Twitter, will use hashtags in front of the majority of the words in their tweet. This not only means it’s hard to read, but it decreases the legitimacy of the account. With so many spam bot accounts already existing on Twitter, you want to make sure you don’t end up looking like one. Using too many hashtags is a sure way to look like a spam account.
Instead, limit how many hashtags you use per post, particularly if you’re using them in text. Consider what your update is about, and use those keywords as the hashtags. This will mean your message is clearly communicated to your audience and you will still look professional.
4. You need to post all the time
The more you post, the more followers and engagement you’ll get, right? You have to be careful about how much content you are posting to your social media pages. You don’t want to be posting at such a high frequency that you annoy your followers and they unfollow you.
Decide on a schedule for each of your social media pages. If you’re placing more emphasis on one particular platform, it makes sense to post to this one more frequently than others. Just make sure you decide on how many posts you want to publish to each platform, and stick to that schedule.
Some tips to follow are:
Make sure what you’re posting is relevant to your target audience. There is no point increasing how much you’re posting if it’s all irrelevant.
Know when your audience is online. If most of your audience works 9am-5pm, you’ll want to post when they’re on social media - lunch time, and after 5pm. If you know you have an international audience, analyse your data to find peak times.
Use tools such as Buffer to schedule your social media posts at frequent intervals. Don’t publish all of your content at the same time, or else you’ll appear spammy.
5. Automation solves everything
Automation can be great for social media, but only if it’s done correctly. You can use tools to schedule your posts for the week. This is often a necessity for businesses. Particularly if your business doesn’t have a dedicated social media manager, it is generally too time consuming to manually post updates to social media.
However, the danger with automation is businesses may not log into their social media accounts frequently enough. This means you’ll miss engaging with your audience in real time. Use scheduling tools to post content more frequently, but make sure to continue to log into your social media accounts at other times as well.
When you’re using social media for your business, especially when you’re just starting out, listen to the advice you’re given, but always remember to be cautious. If the advice doesn’t seem completely legitimate, it’s worth questioning it and doing your own research. If you’re unsure, consider the downside to the advice. Only follow the advice you’re completely comfortable with and won’t damage your brand’s reputation.
With Facebook Ads and AdWords, it’s easy to forget there are other forms of advertising online. One of the more often overlooked forms of advertising is through YouTube.
YouTube should definitely be a serious contender in your advertising strategy. YouTube boasts over 1 billion unique users every month. That’s some serious audience you could be reaching. Furthermore, visual content is continuing to rise in popularity. People already spend hours consuming visual content every day. Why not take advantage and raise awareness of your brand?
If you’ve thought about advertising through YouTube before, but don’t know where to start - don’t worry! We’ve got all of your questions answered.
Display ads: this ad appears on the right-hand side of the video you’re on, above your video suggestions.
Overlay ads: this ad pops up over the bottom 20% of your video.
Skippable video ads: this is a video ad that plays before the video the viewer selected to watch. This can generally be skipped after 5 seconds.
Sponsored cards: this is content that is relevant to the video playing. It will appear as a card for a few seconds, and then viewers can click the top right hand corner to browse the card.
Non-skippable video ads: in the same format as skippable video ads, but unable to be skipped. Viewers will have to watch a 6 second “bumper” ad, or a 30 second ad. Note that YouTube is removing non-skippable video ads in 2018 to increase the user experience.
Who will see the ads?
Before you start any advertising, you want to have a target market. After all, if you’re investing money in advertising, you want to make sure you’ll be getting a good return on investment. It will also mean you can more accurately tailor your marketing material and receive more views and clicks.
To do this, you should build a Buyer Persona. This should include demographic information such as age, gender, salary and location, to name a few. You also want to know information such as their interests, what else they are subscribed to, what are their influences and what keywords do they use. This will help you to target a more accurate audience and will have more success with your ads.
How much does it cost?
YouTube is a pay per view system, so you only pay if someone watches your entire ad. If they skip your ad before 30 seconds, you don’t have to pay. Your daily budget is completely up to you, so you can spend as little or as much as you like. YouTube advertising doesn’t have to be completely unaffordable.
How do I set up ads for YouTube?
So you’re convinced it’s worth making ads for YouTube - great! There are a few steps to complete before you grab a camera and start making your ad.
First, you’ll need to create a Google AdWords account. You need to make sure your AdWords and YouTube accounts are linked. Navigate to the “Linked YouTube accounts” section to do this.
Once you’ve done this, navigate to the AdWords dashboard and click on “+Campaign.” Next, give your campaign a name, and select which type of format you want your ad to run - in-stream or video discovery ads, or bumper ads.
Under general settings, you can select the budget for your ad. It’s a good idea to start small, you don’t want to blow out your budget right away, especially if you’re new to YouTube advertising.
You’ll also be able to set which geographic location your locations will be shown. This can be as specific as post codes, or cities, regions, or countries. The more specific you go, the better, as you’ll be able to tailor your content specifically for a certain region. Make sure you also select which network your ad will run in, with options including YouTube Search or YouTube Videos.
You can even use advanced settings to choose what days and what time your ads run. Consider when your target audience is most likely to be online - chances are they won’t be on YouTube during work hours. If you’re targeting a specific geographical area, you can also turn off advertising overnight.
If you want, you can also include “device targeting”, which allows you to target people using a specific device - desktop, laptops, mobiles, tablets. If you know your audience are all using mobiles, then why not use device targeting.
How do I make a YouTube ad?
Once you have these settings in place, it’s time to make your YouTube ad. Make sure to take a look at Google’s video ad requirements before starting to create your ad.
Things to consider including in your ad include:
A clear story: make sure you have a script for your ad and it has a clear story that plays out from start to end.
A call to action: what action do you want viewers to take? Visit your website? Sign up to emails? Purchase an item from your sale? Whatever it is, make sure it is communicated clearly, so people know what you expect them to do, and you have a good conversion rate.
About your business: if you’re wanting to raise awareness, let the audience know a bit about your business. When did it start, what did you do, how are you helping the community. Don’t leave viewers questioning who you are and what you do.
Demonstrations: if you’re selling a product, consider including a demonstration. Seeing the before and after helps to prove your product works and achieves the desired results.
Now all you have to do is let your creativity shine and start making your business’ YouTube ad! Once your ad is up and running, remember to use YouTube Analytics, and track your data. This will ensure your campaign performs well and you get the best possible results.
Social media has been around for awhile now, and there are lots of social media experts and professionals. However, there always seems to be myths about social media that just won’t go away. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, right? Not if you’re following these rules as part of your social media strategy.
We’ve done our fact checking and are here to debunk some common social media myths:
1. You need to be on every social media platform
You can really appreciate brands that put in the effort to have a presence across every social media platform. However, it’s not always practical for every business. If you’re a smaller business and don’t have a dedicated social media manager, chances are you don’t have the resources or time to dedicate to posting on lots of platforms.
Instead of spreading yourself thin, the better option is to know what platforms your target audiences uses the most, and dedicate your time to posting there. If you really don’t need to take photographs, you don’t need to worry about Instagram. If you’re an e-commerce store that needs to showcase your products, LinkedIn may not be the best option. Do some target research, and put effort into a few select social media platforms where you’ll get the best engagement.
2. Lots of followers means you’re successful
It feels good to have lots of followers, and it’s a tempting way to measure whether your social media strategy is a success or not.
However, just because you have lots of followers doesn't mean they are engaging with your content, or even buying from your store. Does it really mean much if you’ve got thousands of followers but zero conversions?
Rather than measuring success through the number of followers, look at engagement rates, click-through rates and on-site behaviour. You don’t need hundreds of thousands of followers to have high rates here.
3. My customers don’t use social media
Sometimes people will claim their customers aren’t really online, and therefore they don’t need a fancy website and a big social media presence.
However, social media shouldn’t be excluded just because you rely on word of mouth. Social media is a great way to expand a business and find new customers who perhaps don’t know your existing customers. In fact, 78% of U.S. population has a social profile. So chances are, some of your customers will be online. Social media isn’t just used by millennials! Don’t let this misbelief discourage you from using social media to promote your business.
4. It doesn’t matter how often I post
The hard work is all done once you’ve decided what social media platforms you’re going to use, and have established an account on them, right? Not so much.
You should think about making a schedule for your social media posts and know how frequently you want to be posting. To save yourself having to manually do this throughout the day, and when you’re out of the office, consider using automation tools such as Buffer. This means you can schedule all your posts for the day, across all your platforms, from the one place.
You’ll want a different schedule depending on what social media platforms you’re using. Facebook and Instagram may have less posts than Twitter. However, this will vary from business to business. Know which platform your audience uses the most, and publish more frequently there. Just make sure you post frequently enough that your followers will see your posts, but not too often so that they will think you’re spammy and unfollow you.
It’s not only important to think about how many times you’re going to post per day. You need to think about what content you’re posting. Make sure what you post is relevant to your brand and your customers interests. Otherwise, people won’t engage with your posts. Make sure you’re not always selling your own products or services. Most of the time should be dedicated to sharing resourceful, useful information that your followers will want to read and share. This can be your own original content, or blog posts or videos from your influencers. Sharing this type of content will help to establish your business as an authority in your industry, as people will view you as a good resource for information.
5. Social media is free
One of the biggest myths surrounding social media is that it’s free. It is, in fact, free to sign up to the major social media platforms. If you’re not investing in paid advertising, then posting on your business’ account is also free.
However, social media can be a big investment in time and money. As well as setting up accounts, you have to establish followers, raise awareness of your brand, schedule content, engage and interact with your audience and monitor your social media performance. This can take up a lot of time, depending on how much return you want from social media. If you’re wanting to get better results, it’s also worth considering paid media, rather than just relying on organic reach. It’s easy to see that while it doesn’t cost anything to set up an account and make posts, getting the biggest return possible out of social media will, in fact, cost you money.
Now that these myths have been busted, it’s time to stop including these as goals in your social media strategy, and work to improve your marketing and increase your social media return on investment.
So you’ve got your social media pages set up, and you’re gaining traction on Facebook and Twitter, maybe even Instagram. But have you considered LinkedIn? For some businesses, particularly recruiters, LinkedIn is a vital social media platform.
The problem is, it can be a bit harder to gain attention. Unlike other social media platforms, you need something more than memes to attract likes and comments. Instead, there are several things you can do that are sure to increase the chances of your business getting noticed on LinkedIn.
Maximise your profile
The first step is to make sure your profile is complete. Make sure the URL has been customised and is your business name, rather than a bunch of random numbers. This will make it easier for people to find your LinkedIn profile. You also want to customise areas such as profile picture and header image. Make sure important information such as your website’s URL, is up to date. Ensure that your keywords are used throughout the page.
Know your audience
When using LinkedIn, it’s important to know who your audience is, so you know who you’re targeting. Fortunately, you can leverage LinkedIn to find out this information. LinkedIn Groups is a great way to undertake free market research. Look at what your target market is discussing and what problems they have.
If you want to go one step further, you can create your own LinkedIn Group. This allows you to not only drive traffic to your website, but is another way to create a connection to your community. If you’re going to do this, just remember to post regularly, and answer questions people have within the group.
Answer questions
Use LinkedIn Answers to respond to questions people post. This will help you appear as a more authoritative figure in your field, and a useful resource.
You can set up “Answers Application” on your homepage, and select the topics you know best. This will help you to keep an eye out for topics you can answer. When a question is posted that you can answer, make sure you:
Be as resourceful as possible. Make sure to not only answer all of the question, but include links and helpful websites in your answer.
Suggest that the person posting the question can contact you if they need more help.
Post videos and images
While other people focus their energy on posting content, you can stand out from the crowd by posting videos of your business. This is a great way to advertise your business for free, and showcase what you can do. You might even get more connections because of it.
If you don’t have the time or technical skills to produce a video, don’t worry! Your next best option is to make sure you always include images with your posts. Visual posts always get more clicks than those without. This is because it stands out from all the other text in the news feed. Just make sure your images are professional and relevant, and even consider making branded images.
There are over 467 million active professionals on LinkedIn, so why not get your business seen by them? LinkedIn Ads are a great way to ensure your business will be seen by those who are highly influential in your industry, such as CEOs. LinkedIn Ads are fairly low cost, with flexible payments options including pay-per-click, or pay per 1000 impressions. You can even have sponsored mail, where your messages will be delivered straight to your target audience’s inbox. Ads are a great way to start generating leads through LinkedIn.
Post frequently
So you don’t need to post as frequently as you would on Twitter. But you should still try and have some form of schedule for how often you are going to be posting content to LinkedIn. Make sure what you’re posting is interesting and relevant. While it is a great place to share your own content, consider posting content from influencers as well. If you found an article interesting, why not post it on LinkedIn? Chances are, someone else will find it interesting too, and may even leave a comment to thank you for posting.
If you’re going to be sharing your own, original content, consider installing a share plugin. This means a social media share button will appear on your posts, and make it easier for people to share your content. This not only boosts your presence on LinkedIn, but increases traffic flow to your website.
To really get your business noticed on LinkedIn, all you have to do is put in a little effort. Become an active member online, join or create groups, post quality content people will want to share, and consider making some creative Ads. These steps are sure to not only increase traffic, but help improve engagement and get your business noticed on LinkedIn too.
Hashtags are a great thing to capitalise on when you’re using Twitter. They’re a great way to connect with people who are talking about and interested in the same topic. If it weren’t for the hashtag, you may have never been able to find these people.
If you’re running a business, it’s a good idea to consider creating your own branded hashtag. It can encourage people to communicate with your brand by using the hashtag on their posts and images. It also makes it easy for you to monitor what is being said online about your brand, and respond to comments. You can also use a branded hashtag to promote products, contests or any sponsored events. The branded hashtag will help to increase the exposure of these events.
There are some steps you should follow if you’re considering starting your own branded hashtag.
5 steps to creating a branded hashtag:
Consider your goals
What do you want to achieve by creating a branded hashtag? Create a social media ROI strategy, and include these goals. Having a goal to achieve will help you to know whether or not your branded hashtag is a success or making any difference to your marketing efforts.
Brainstorm
Don’t just decide on the one hashtag. Brainstorm and come up with several ideas for the hashtag. You’ll need a longer list depending on whether you’re going to use a hashtag just for your business, or for specific events.
When brainstorming ideas, try to be as creative as possible. No one is going to want to use a dull, boring hashtag. Make sure your hashtags are:
Short: with character limits on social media, you don’t want to have a long hashtag
Easy to spell: something that is difficult to spell will mean people won’t remember it or use it.
Consistent: is it in line with your brand? Will it resonate with your target market?
Unique: make sure to do your research and ensure the hashtag isn’t already in use. Use the search function on Twitter to see if your hashtag has already been used.
Call to action: consider your hashtag to be a type of call to action. Consider a word or phrase that asks a question, or will incite engagement.
Double-check
Once you have come up with a list of hashtags, it’s time to do some research. You don’t want to settle on a hashtag that another brand is already using. You also want to avoid any embarrassing social media fails. To avoid any problems, make sure you:
Check spelling: hashtags have no spaces in them, so it’s important to check your phrase doesn’t create a new word. Anyone remember #susanalbumparty? Three words that are normally fine, but together resulted in a hashtag fail.
Check every platform: maybe something is trending on Instagram and not Twitter. Make sure you check everywhere for your hashtag before you decide on it.
Newsworthy: before launching your new hashtag, make sure you check any current events that could impact your hashtag. You don’t want to be promoting a hashtag right in the middle of a major disaster, as you’ll come across as looking extremely insensitive. Make sure you get the timing of the release of your hashtag right.
Promotion
People aren’t going to just start using your hashtag overnight. You need to let your followers know it exists! This doesn’t just have to be a simple tweet telling people to use the hashtag. Show off your creativity to spread the message of your new hashtag. Taking a photograph and share it on the relevant social media pages would be an interesting way to engage followers. You could also consider mentioning it in an email, or even having promotions about it in store. Whatever you can think of, do it! You need to make sure people will know about the hashtag. Make sure you use it in your own social media posts - if you’re not using it, why would you followers?
Monitor
Once you’ve launched your hashtag, it’s important to track and monitor its progress. Otherwise, your hashtag may not be making much of an impact, and you’ll have no way to know. Use data tools such as Google Analytics or Social Sprout to track your hashtag. Tracking the hashtag will also give you the chance to communicate with those using the hashtag. Your followers will definitely appreciate getting a reply or retweet if they use your hashtag.
Make sure you frequently use your hashtag on your preferred social media platforms. Just remember to avoid overdoing it - you don’t want to come across as looking desperate and really pushing the hashtag. Naturally use the hashtag in your posts, and you’ll find your followers will soon follow suit.
More and more businesses are starting to realise the advantage of being active on Instagram. It’s no longer just a platform for people to post selfies. Instead, it’s a great way for brands to be more fun, relaxed and communicate with their audience.
However, it’s not always easy to get Instagram right. You need to know your audience and what type of photographs or videos they want to see. Post content that’s too boring, and people won’t want to follow you.
Fortunately, for those who are struggling with Instagram, you only need to look at the brands who are doing Instagram marketing right.
1. National Geographic
No longer just a print magazine, National Geographic has completely embraced new technology and taken advantage of Instagram. It boasts an impressive 70 million followers. The brand posts several photos and videos a day - all in the high quality you expect from National Geographic. The captions always mention where you can go to see more from the photographer, so followers will never be unsatisfied. The bio even includes a link to National Geographic’s photography page. If you’re wanting to see some amazing wildlife photography, look no further than National Geographic.
2. Air BnB
Airbnb sometimes has a bad reputation - people trashing the place they stay at, or guests showing up to an unsightly apartment. It’s Instagram page will make you forget that and leave you feeling inspired. It showcases some of the most stunning and interesting locations around the world. Each photograph includes a link to the photographer's account. Scrolling through their photographs just makes me want to book accommodation now.
3. GoPro
Considering GoPro sells what they dub the “world’s most versatile camera” you’d expect them to have an awesome Instagram account. And they sure deliver! GoPro’s Instagram is an impressive collection of photographs shot by ordinary people. The photographers are tagged in the post, with the caption also mentioning how the photograph was taken and what camera they used. Now you know how you can get a photo that looks that good, what’s stopping you from grabbing a GoPro and testing it out yourself?
4. Lorna Jane
If you’re looking for a fitness company who is using Instagram right, it’s Australia’s Lorna Jane. The company not only posts photos of Lorna herself, but posts their products, inspirational quotes, and photos submitted by the community. It’s no wonder the account has 767,000 followers. Lorna Jane even has its own hashtags - #MoveNourishBelieve and #ActiveLiving. People are encouraged to use the hashtags in their own photographs, as well as tag the Instagram page. You really get the vibe of exactly what the company sells, as well as the clientele they are targeting.
5. #FollowMeTo
Those photos you’ve seen of a woman leading a man by the hand to a new travel destination? That originated from the #FollowMeTo project, created by Murad and Nataly. The account doesn’t only post photos of people being led by their arm. They also post photographs from people’s travels all around the world. The easy concept of the photograph, and the fact they have their own branded hashtag, makes it easy for people to take their own photograph and post it on their accounts.
6. Grand Central Terminal
Grand Central Terminal has made train stations interesting. It’s bio encourages people to submit their own photographs using the hashtag #SharingGCT. The account posts a combination of their own videos and photographs, as well as photographs submitted through the hashtag. It not only features great architecture photographs, but includes photos of products you can buy within the station. Anyone else feel like booking tickets to New York City now?
7. Staples
https://www.instagram.com/p/BPxU1Z5h18l/
Staples is here to make stationery interesting again. Not only do they manage to take good photographs and videos of stationery, they are really good at engaging their audience. The captions of the photos and videos often ask a question, such as “who’s ready to get organised in 2017?” The photos are often holiday themed - think Hannukah, New Years’, and even “Clean Off Your Desk Day.” Their branded #MakeMoreHappen hashtag encourages people to take their own stationery photos.
8. Punch Drink
If you’re a fan of Punch, this account is for you. The Instagram account features stylish photographs of different Punch drinks. What makes them stand out is the fact they include the recipes in the caption of the photograph, and often tags the photographer too. Their bio includes a link to a page where you can find more articles and recipes. After seeing a photograph of how nice the drinks look, it’s good to know how to make them as well.
9. Adobe
Adobe features photographs that are exclusively by its community. It has its own hashtag, which changes depending on the theme of the month. February’s theme was #Adobe_SeeingRed, which encourages users to submit red themed photographs. This is a great space to get inspired, while also showcasing your own work. Only posting the community’s photos is a great way to increase engagement.
10. NASA
Those who love space - make sure you’re following NASA’s Instagram account. Not only will you find amazing, high-quality photographs and videos of space, they also have lengthy descriptions which can be quite interesting and educational. They will often tag the International Space Station or other astronauts, giving you the chance to follow them to have even more photographs of space in your Instagram feed.
Feel like we left any out? Know another awesome brand doing Instagram marketing right? Let us know in the comments.
Social media can be a great thing for your business. After all, it’s a free way to engage with your customers and raise awareness of your brand. You can promote your products, services or even blog posts and gain more traffic flow, conversions and sales. What’s not to love about social media?
Sometimes, things can go wrong. Businesses make simple mistakes which can reflect badly on your brand.
So what are these mistakes, and how do you avoid making them?
1. Know who has access to your accounts
It’s important for businesses to only let certain people have access to your social media accounts. Often, mistakes occur because people are not experienced enough and don’t know how to react. In some instances, fired, disgruntled employees still have access to the social media accounts. Back in 2013, the official HMV Twitter account live-tweeted the mass firing of 60 staff. The tweets have since been deleted, but highlighted how senior management did not have control over the social media accounts.
2. Not responding to comments
It’s important to engage with your audience on social media. This includes any negative feedback. Some businesses will choose to simply delete any negative comments or block the user. This strategy can have its downsides. If comments are deleted, the user can simply post again, or tell other people to post. This risks making the user even angrier, instead of resolving the problem.
Rather than deleting the comments, it’s best to respond in a polite, calm manner. If necessary, ask the user to directly message you. This way, the comments aren’t made in public for everyone to see, and you can work to resolve the issue.
Make sure to avoid automated replies, as customers can easily see you send the same response to each person who comments. These responses aren’t personalised and don’t work towards a resolution. It’s also important to keep your composure, and never attack the person leaving a negative review.
The chef of Boston restaurant Pigalle learned this lesson the hard way, after a customer left a complaint on their Facebook page. The negative comment not only received a rude response, but caused an angry status to be posted as well:
While the customer and chef were able to make amends, this is a great case study on how NOT to respond to customers on social media.
3. Promoting your products
Your social media accounts are about your business, you should be able to promote your products or services all the time, right? Wrong. Social media is not just a place to try and make a sale. Instead, you want to build a relationship with your customers.
A good rule to follow is the 80/20 principle. This means you should only promote your products 20% of the time, while the remaining 80% of the time should be dedicated to sharing insightful, engaging content. After all, people use social media to be social. They don’t want to be bombarded with sales pitches.
4. Not following current events
Businesses can often end up with a damaged reputation simply by not following current events. It’s not uncommon for businesses to schedule their social media posts in advance. On the plus side, this saves time and means you can have tweets being posted when you’re out of the office. On the down side, an auto scheduled tweet can look insensitive if it doesn’t take into account current events.
This seems innocent enough, considering it’s the NRA. However, the tweet received considerable backlash, as it was posted after the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado. While a spokesperson for the NRA said the tweet was taken out of context, the tweet was removed by 12:15pm, with the entire account being deleted at 4:45pm. The tweet states was posted via HootSuite, indicating it was scheduled in advance. To avoid damage to your brand’s reputation, it’s always best to review scheduled tweets.
5. Hashtags
Particularly on Twitter and Instagram, hashtags can be a great way to increase the views of your content. If you make your own branded hashtag, you can also encourage users to post it to communicate with your brand.
Some businesses leverage hashtags and use them as part of a campaign. The company will ask users to tweet a story or question and use the hashtag. However, this can very easily backfire if the campaign isn’t completely thought out. Sometimes, there is another meaning to the hashtag - anyone remember #susanalbumparty? Other times, the campaign will start innocently enough, but will take a quick turn due to the negative public perception of the brand. This is what McDonald’s learned the hard way.
The #McDStories started out as a way to talk about its staff:
However, the hashtag quickly went downhill, and users shared their bad McDonald’s stories, fast food facts and sarcastic comments:
The hashtag was initially a paid promotion, but this was removed within the hour of it starting. If you’re thinking of starting a hashtag, make sure to check the spelling, know the public perception of your brand, and have a strategy in place if it gets overrun by trolls.
To avoid any damage to your brands' reputation from social media use, it’s best to ensure your staff has social media training, you know who has access to your accounts, and you have a contingency plan in place in case things do go wrong. This way, you can avoid situations becoming uncontrollable and avoid further damaging your brand.
