Category: Social Media

It’s no surprise that Instagram has become one of the most popular social media sites. It is now more popular than Twitter! This article will help you use your business account on Instagram to generate more followers and increase sales. We’ll discuss how to make sure your account is set up correctly, what kind of content you should post, and some strategies for building an engaged following. So without further ado – let’s get started! Find out what your business needs to succeed on Instagram in today’s ever-evolving digital marketing landscape.

Setting Up Your Instagram Account Correctly

First, let’s make sure you’ve set up your Instagram account correctly. When you first set up your account, username and bio are pretty much the only things that have to be filled out, but we recommend filling out your profile in its entirety. Enter a username related to your business or brand name in the username box (e.g., @yourbusinessname). Then type something about what your page is for. This space is an excellent place to put some keywords in to help users understand your purpose.

Next, make sure your username and bio link to the correct websites. Fill out the URL for your website in the username box if you want users to be able to go right from their Instagram page back to yours. If not, fill out a link where people can find more information about your business or brand on other social media sites. We highly recommend using your website or a link in bio software, as you’ll read about later in the blog.

Now, let’s post a few images to get your account up and running.

The best time to post on Instagram is when your audience is most active. For example, if you run a restaurant and most of your customers are adults, it might be wise to avoid posting at breakfast or lunch hours. Instead, post from around dinner time until closing time so you’ll have more engagement, and more users will be reached by your post.

Now that we’ve chosen an excellent time to post let’s choose an image that is high quality and will appeal to your audience. Next, make any edits to the picture using third-party editing software or Instagram’s built-in editing tool.

Then, add your chosen hashtags to the image. You can do this in various ways, such as adding text with an app like Phonto or typing out the hashtag name using Instagram’s built-in keyboard. You can only post 30 hashtags per post and make sure they are varied between popular high-use hashtags and smaller niche hashtags.

What Kind of Content Should You Post So Your Business Can Be Successful on Instagram?

You may be asking yourself, “What kind of content should I post on Instagram?” This is a question that cannot be answered with one answer. Each business needs to analyze what their customers are looking for and then create the most engaging content possible based on that information.

There is no blanket lifestyle or aesthetic that will work best across all businesses in today’s social media landscape.

Here are a few suggestions that may be relevant for your business.

• lifestyle photos or videos
• high-quality images or videos from your brand’s products or services being performed in action
• behind the scenes of how a product is made or a service is conducted

A lifestyle photo or video is generally what most individuals look for in their feed. So this would be an excellent place to start if you want to hook people with visually striking content. It can take some time to create an engaging lifestyle photo that will generate likes from your followers, and business owners often struggle to understand the meaning of a lifestyle photo.

When creating lifestyle photos or videos, it is vital to keep in mind what the individuals viewing your content want to see and how they want to feel from seeing that content. A lifestyle photo should show an experience where others can imagine themselves living if they choose this lifestyle. For instance, when posting about travel destinations, you’d take an image of someone laughing with their friends while throwing coins in the Trevi Fountain in Rome.

How to Build an Engaged Following So Your Business Can Be Successful on Instagram

As a business, it can be difficult to find success on Instagram because you need an engaged following. To build your engagement, there are four steps:

Step 1: Audit competitors in your space, killing it on Instagram with lots of likes and comments on their posts. How can you tailor your page uniquely to do the same?

Step 2: Follow those people you’re trying to emulate. This will help build your following and provide a sense of community for potential followers.

Step 3: Comment on posts from influencers in the space with an audience similar to yours or higher. These comments should be genuine, not just spammy links with hashtags or one-liners like ‘Nice!’

Step 4: Post consistently, with a mix of quality photos and videos.

Ideas to Increase Engagement So Your Business Can Be Successful on Instagram

If you’re struggling with low engagement on Instagram, there are some simple fixes you can try.

• Run a Contest. Running a contest is a great way to increase engagement on Instagram. It can be as simple as asking people to share your latest post or giving away something special like a free product sample.
• Include Hashtags in Your Posts Some of the most popular hashtags are trending acronyms like #tbt and #ootd. Find out which ones your customers use, then include them in posts with pictures that relate.
• Encourage Feedback. When you ask your customers to leave feedback, it gives them a chance to respond and feel like they are being heard. It also lets you know what’s working for them so that you can tailor future posts accordingly
• Post pictures with captions in your best copywriting voice. If the picture doesn’t say it all, let your words paint the picture you’re trying to convey.

Be Authentic

In conclusion, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for running a successful Instagram account, but what you should take away from this blog post is that it comes down to authenticity. Post consistently and authentically, engage with your followers on the app, ask them questions about themselves or their interests in comments and captions of posts, try new things, and have fun! If you would like some help managing your company’s social media accounts and creating engaging content, we would love to help you. Call us today for a free marketing consultation where we will look at where you stand right now and how you could improve in the future!

Bonus Tip: To increase the number of pages, articles, blogs, etc., you can link to in your bio, consider a link in bio software like the ones offered by Later and LinkTree. These allow you to create a landing page of links in your bio to take users to the destinations mentioned in each post quicker and more efficiently since you cannot have links in your captions.

In the past few years, B2B marketers were forced to change their strategy due to COVID-19 swiftly. To combat this, social media is the perfect solution to an un-wished change in networking, communication, and growth for many B2B companies. 

The top marketers of B2B companies are those who refocused stronger on their social media strategy. The best part of social media is creating a lasting connection with your audience, and social media has been a phenomenal way to grow your relationship with partners and potential prospects. 

B2B marketing is built upon human resources and relationships, even though the end goal is to sell products or services. Social media has been the key to unlocking and igniting these relationships without in-person events. In this graphic B2B, 64% of B2B marketers rate social media as the second-most important factor in their strategy. 

There are 5 things B2B marketers can do on social media: 

• Build brand awareness
  • Tell your story across various platforms, share customer stories, and why you provide the services you offer. 
• Generate leads 
  • Focus on your target audience by creating engaging and meaningful conversations.
• Build a community
  • Listen to customers and what they have to say about your company.
• Connect social media posts to opportunities
  • Drive social posts to your CRM to fully understand customers.
• Measure marketing efforts
  • Research management and social media platforms to help you track key performance metrics (KPIs).

Social media allows B2B marketers to connect with their audience wherever they are: Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, Youtube, Pinterest, or any other notable platforms. 

Why do you need engaging content?

Creating engaging content for your social media platforms is what ultimately matters here. If you want your audience to engage and connect with you on social media, you have to speak to them! 

Employee Advocacy

Some marketers are allowing their employees to speak about their company online for them as a unique approach. Employee advocacy is the best way to gain trust with your audience. When employees genuinely love and support the company they work for, they love to share that with their friends and family online.

 Word of mouth marketing is highly effective. When employees share their work experiences they are in turn more authentic. Their audience is more likely to trust them; they also will feel more inclined to comment and engage with the content knowing they are speaking directly with an employee of the company. Several studies show that people are three times more likely to trust a company’s employee than the company itself. 

Get Started with Your Social Media Strategy

People follow social media accounts to get deeper information about a particular company they are interested in. So now the question is: I know I need to be on social media, but how do I make an effective strategy? 

1. Identify questions you commonly get asked by customers
2. Research and choose a social media tool to make things easier for your team
3. Hire or train a team to execute your social media strategy
4. Identify your competitors and collaborate
5. Create a content calendar to organize your ideas

After establishing a defined strategy, ask yourself a few questions to ensure your strategy is adequate or if you need to adjust it. What are your goals? How do you plan on measuring them? What social media platform are you going to prioritize? How/who is going to post and attribute to social media? 

The Future of 2021 in Digital Marketing

In conclusion, look ahead to the future of digital marketing, it’s never too late. Create, define, and implement your social media strategy and blossom beyond where you could ever imagine. Use employees to build advocacy and trust online for your company. Furthermore, social media can help you reach a wide variety of audiences quickly. Now is the time, so don’t miss out! Social media has never been more remarkable. Schedule a consultation today, or complete our contact form! 

We’re a few months into this new year and if you’ve been paying attention to social media, you know that the most important thing in managing a campaign is strategy. In order to develop a strong and cohesive social media strategy, you need to know the social media stats data you’re dealing with! We’re going to give you a high-level overview of some of the biggest statistics you need to know as you craft your social media strategy.

1. Facebook Has 2.7 Billion Monthly Active Users

This is an increase of 12% from 2019. You might be thinking to yourself that your audience isn’t on Facebook but the reality is, no other social media platforms offer that kind of reach! Even if your audience is using other social media platforms, chances are they’re using Facebook too and you want to ensure you’re covering all of your bases.

2. 81% Of People Use Instagram to Research Products & Services

With an increase in products and services being offered virtually, people are turning to social media to verify a company’s validity and reputation. If someone is unable to find you or your brand on Instagram, they’ll likely move on to their next option because in their eyes, no Instagram profile means you’re not a legitimate company and they won’t feel comfortable reaching out to you. Even if you have a website and tons of reviews, most people are aware that can be faked sometimes. Social media is where potential clients and companies go to see authentic content from companies, which in turn, makes them feel more secure in their purchasing decision process.

3. Ad Exposure on LinkedIn Can Increase Purchase Intent by 33%

You might think LinkedIn is just for recruiting, but LinkedIn is full of high-level executives who are responsible for a majority of their company’s purchasing decisions. In fact, 4 out of every 5 LinkedIn users drive business decisions. If your target audience is primarily B2B (business to business), you need to have a strong social media plan with proven social media stats centered around LinkedIn.

4. Twitter Has an Advertising Audience of 353 Million People

This is up 8% over last year, with an increase of 27 million users. Twitter is predicted to continue growing throughout 2021 as well. As we exist in an ever-changing society, the need for in-the-moment news and updates is stronger than ever. As with every other social media platform, users are looking to see evidence that you are up-to-date regarding what’s going on in the world around you. The one benefit Twitter has over other social media channels is that you’re more likely to see text-only content versus images and videos. You should take this social media stats tool into consideration when developing your social media strategy for Twitter.

5. The Average Price for a Facebook Ad Actually Decreased by 9% In 2020

If you’ve ever tried your hand at running Facebook ads, this statistic might shock you. As Facebook algorithm continues to improve ad campaigns overall, the cost for advertising has slightly decreased. If you haven’t considered a paid ads campaign on Facebook, now is the time as you’ll be getting your best bang for buck. In reality, there are 1.7 billion Facebook Pages and on average, Facebook Pages publish content 1.5 times per day so it’s possible your organic content is getting lost in a sea of 2.5+ billion Facebook posts per day. Paid Facebook campaigns allow you to hyper target your audience and ensure your product or service is getting in front of the right people.

As restrictions begin to lift and the world becomes more active, the need for a strong social media campaign will become increasingly important. People are looking for new experiences, products, and services as we “re-enter” society. With an increase in activity, you’re likely to see a natural increase in your operations as well and may not have time to craft the perfect social media campaign. That’s where we come in! Let us take the weight off of your back and craft a campaign with your goals in mind. For more information on how we can help you take your business to the next level, email us at info@theadleaf.com or call us at 321-255-0900.

If you’ve been managing any social media campaign, you’ve probably asked yourself this question a million times. You’ve probably heard that posting times are irrelevant now, with behavior-based algorithms having been rolled out among most platforms. While it is true that behavior-based algorithms have affected optimal posting times, it’s ignorant to think that when you launch your content does not affect your engagement rates, visibility, or the number of impressions generated. Are all hours and minutes equal in the eyes of the algorithm? The short answer is “no.” Let’s talk about why.

Is There Really a “Best” Time to Post? 

While most newsfeed algorithms are behavior-based, a few platforms take “recency” into consideration due to social media trends moving so quickly. In-the-moment updates and news are important in gauging whether or not your content should be shown to an audience, so it makes sense that they consider recency. 

As you might have guessed, there’s no one “right answer” or a “one-size-fits-all answer” to this question. The most important thing you can do when determining what time of day to launch your content, is to pay attention to your own analytics. Every target audience is different, and beyond that, every platform is different too. 

While you can apply some generalizations, like “the best time to post across industries is 9 a.m., when people are just starting work and going online for the first time” (Hubspot), it’s essential to understand that your followers could be online at a different time based on their personal attributes. 

If your target audience is mothers with young children, 9 a.m. might not be when they’re active online. They’re likely getting their kids set up for the day, so they may not be on social media until the youngsters go down for their mid-morning nap around 11 a.m. If you’re posting your content at 9 a.m., you could be missing that key audience. 

This is where your social media analytics will come into play. You need to monitor your content and pay close attention to when your audience is online and interacting with your content. You may be surprised to find out when your audience is genuinely online. 

How Do I Find Out When My Audience is Active on Social Media? 

Facebook

Facebook makes it relatively easy to figure this out. When looking at your Facebook Page, you’ll see a list of options on the left-hand side. First, you’ll select the option titled “Insights.” From there, you’ll select “Posts.” Then, you’ll see a graph at the top of the page detailing when your audience is most active. For those that are visual learners, here’s a step-by-step:

Based on the data provided above, we can see a few key points:

• Our audience is most active on Sundays, Thursdays, and Fridays.
• Our audience is most active between the times of 5 a.m. and 8 a.m.
• Our audience is also reasonably active between the times of 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. 

After looking at this data, we should optimize our content to launch between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. throughout the week. If we wanted to switch things up, we could also launch our content between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. This will help our campaign connect with most of our audience as it may be different target audiences who are active in the evening hours versus the engaged audience in the morning hours.

Instagram

When looking at your Instagram profile’s main screen (hint: make sure your profile is converted to a Business Profile), click on the “Insights” button. From there, ensure you’re looking at a 30-day overview as 7-day analytics can provide a false positive or a false negative. The more data you’re taking into consideration, the better. Select “See All” next to the “Your Audience” section. Then, scroll down to the bottom, and you’ll be able to see the Hours or Days your audience is most active. Here’s a step-by-step breakdown for my visual learners:

In reviewing the analytics from our Instagram profile, here are a few key takeaways:

• In terms of daily activity, our audience is pretty even across the board. There isn’t a specific day that stands out significantly. 
• Our audience is most active between the hours of 12 p.m. – 3 p.m. across the board. 

When optimizing our Instagram content, it would serve us well to launch our content within that time frame each day. This will capture the bulk of our audience. In looking at the last graphic, it appears our audience is equally as active around 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. as well, so if we wanted to test our strategy against itself, we could choose one of those times to post as well. Like our Facebook strategy, it’s essential to consider multiple audience groups and determine which posting strategy captures your most active audience. 

This is just two out of the many social media platforms that exist now, so you can imagine it takes a significant amount of time and effort to track peak activity times across multiple platforms. As an agency, we have access to various tools that allow us to compile, track, and present this data to you, along with a comprehensive social media marketing strategy that takes all of this (and more) into consideration. If you’re looking to streamline your social media strategy, email us at info@theadleaf.com or call us at 321-255-0900 to get started with your unique social media strategy today. 

Marketing and the Facebook Algorithm

It’s pretty common knowledge that trends in social media are constantly changing, but how much do you know about the algorithms that determine what’s seen and who sees it? Let’s use Facebook as an example. While it would certainly make the lives of social media coordinators much easier, there’s no one set algorithm that Facebook uses. There are common denominators and things that affect algorithms as a whole– like elections–, but every single user has their own unique algorithm that’s generated by what they commonly interact with and who is paying to put their content in front of them. The average reach for an organic post hovers around 5% and drops more with each passing month. As with most things in business and marketing, paid ads are king.

How Algorithms Affect Marketing

Every time you log in to Facebook and check out your feed, your algorithm is updated based on what posts you’re interacting with, who you’ve chosen to “see first” on your feed, your settings, and several other factors. Up until recently, there was also a lot of information being taken from Facebook partners that helped both ad and organic algorithms hone in on their audience on a very granular level. On top of keeping up to date with normal algorithm changes, Facebook users and managers are now coming face-to-face with Apple’s new security policy, allowing users to opt-out of data sharing that companies use to target their ads.

Facebook Algorithm Tracking

If you’re an iPhone owner, you’ve likely already seen the popup message on many of your apps that allows you to opt-out of a lot of the information sharing that had been occurring. While this limits ad targeting in some industries, it’s not completely stripping away the carefully crafted audiences many rely on to bring in leads. However, without the behind-the-scenes know-how of targeting and how to adjust to similar targets that are still available, you’re likely to see a large decrease in leads. This skillset is just one of the many reasons it’s so important to have a trained social media specialist on your team.

Defeating the Facebook Algorithm

For a novice, mastering algorithms is an overwhelming task, and without the proper training and know-how, it’s a real guessing game. It’s also time-consuming to monitor the latest news and updates and tweak your posting schedule and ads accordingly. That’s where we step in! The AD Leaf has a full team of highly trained and skilled social media coordinators that are always up to date on all things social media. Put your time and energy toward your business and let us handle the rest!

Why You Need Great Social Media Content

So, you’ve committed to creating social media content. You’re ready to kick off your social media marketing strategy, and you’re going to kill it!

There’s only one problem. What are you going to post?

Social media is all about engagement. If your social media content is stale and lifeless, people won’t interact. We all know sharing is caring! If your audience doesn’t care about what you’re posting, they won’t share it. They won’t repost, retweet, like, comment, or follow either!

So how can you get that engagement? With valuable content, of course!

Social Media Science

There’s a science behind what people will or won’t share on social media. Studies have shown that a majority of people sharing content do so because they are entertained, and want to entertain their friends. Another motivation? Information. People like to educate themselves, and will share content that will be useful to their friends and followers. From a psychological standpoint, it’s simple: people want to look good. People are more inclined to share interesting and engaging content because it makes THEM look interesting and engaging. What’s more, great content helps people to connect with and even help their friends, family and followers.

So, now that we know what people share, what kind of content is best?

Great Social Media Content Makes You Feel Something

Feelings are a part of daily life for everyone, so it makes sense that content that invokes an emotional response will get a good reaction. But which emotions are the best ones to target? Studies have shown that positive content tends to get more shares than negative content. Furthermore, laughter and amusement are at the top of the list. So, give people something to laugh about!

Don’t Forget the Visuals

We all know the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Images tell stories, and people love storytelling! Content that includes visuals gets 94% more views than content without. That’s because the brain processes things visually. If you want to draw your audience’s eye, images are the way to do it.

When it comes to your images, size matters. Make sure you’re posting images of a high enough resolution that they’ll show up clear and sharp. Nobody likes blurry, stretched out images. Not sure where to get images to post? The best ones are the ones you take yourself! If that’s not an option, stock images can work well, too.

Attention is Everything

We live in an age of pocket-sized information. If your content isn’t immediate eye-catching, people will scroll on by. It’s easier and faster to absorb information in bite-sized pieces. Lists and infographics are the way to go! When you put things in list format, people know exactly what they’re getting when they click the link. Lists and infographics get shared more than other types of content, so they’re a great tool for engagement! Infographics are also easy to make with tools like Canva, Vizualize, and more. If you don’t want to make one, find one to share.

Who hasn’t clicked through to find out what kind of pizza matches their personality? Interactive content like quizzes are great for interaction and engagement! The benefit of interactive content is that it encourages users to engage instead of just scrolling past. Luckily, creating quizzes, polls, and other interactive content is a breeze. There are many tools made just for that.

Hashtags Get You Found

There’s a hashtag for every day. #MotivationMonday. #ThrowbackThursday. #FlashbackFriday. Daily themes are a great way to engage! This trend doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, so get on board. Similarly, there’s a wacky holiday for almost every day, week and month as well. Did you know there are national food holidays almost every day? With a little pre-planning, you can have some great content prepared to celebrate these observances.

Want to know the best way to engage with your audience? Post THEIR content. Your best salespeople are the people who are using your products and services and talking about the experience. Take GoPro for example. What better way to sell their product than show you ALL the ways in which it can be used, and ALL the videos it can take? Every GoPro user can be a content creator. That gives GoPro unlimited resources to showcase exactly what their product is capable of.

Great Social Media Content Builds Connections

Did you notice something similar about all of these pieces? That’s right, none of them are links to your business website!

That doesn’t mean you can’t ever post about your business! In fact, there are times when that’s beneficial.

If you’ve got information that is relevant, educational, engaging and everything we’ve talked about, post it! Just don’t drown your audience in it, because nobody likes when people talk about themselves all the time.

It’s called social media for a reason. People want to connect! They want to engage with causes they care about, they want to support and help their friends and families, and they want to feel and share those feelings. Make your page a place where they can do just that!