by Scarlett Darbyshire

The Ultimate Social Media Marketing Plan for Your Health & Beauty Salon!

In today’s digitally driven world, properly utilizing social media is necessary for those who want to remain relevant and competitive—and that includes Hair and Beauty Salons. With so many opportunities for growth and relationship-building, social media, if done right, provides a unique platform for long-term marketing success.

As we all know, social media has changed the way we receive and exchange information—it’s the new word-of-mouth marketing and it’s how your prospects and clients network. Just as emerging technology changes your daily workflow, it also impacts the way you interact with prospective and existing clients. Your social presence, or lack thereof, can be critical to your businesses continuity. Today’s conversations, research and buying decisions take place online. This means social media is no longer optional as a communication channel—it’s essential.

Social media is a great way to engage with your current and potential customers, spread more awareness about your services, and create brand loyalty among customers by reinforcing what makes your salon unique. We live in an image-crazy digital world where people like to see an image rather than words. Someone looking for a new hairstyle or set of nails, would like to see a) a choice of what to choose from and b) what YOU can do. This is your chance to shine. This is your chance to promote your business in a creative and inspirational way as to attract new clients and to prove what you are capable of.

Why is social media for hair and beauty salons so important?

  • Showcase your achievements
  • Promote your team
  • Engage with individuals
  • Provide excellent customer service
  • Increase online sales and enquiries
  • Reach more potential clients
  • Stand out from the crowd

With the increasing use of social media in every industry, it’s crucial that businesses know how to connect with customers and use platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in a way that customers will enjoy and that will benefit your business.

A powerful and successful social media presence could easily be made by implementing a robust and consistent content strategy that allows you to promote your activities and business news, generate engagement and a sense of community and become an industry leader by sharing valuable, informative contributions and insights that will engage, evoke interest and provide advice to your audience.

There are many examples of rich content that could be utilized!

  • Introduction to what’s involved with each specific manicure and pedicure service.
  • Tips for choosing nails for your personality, body type, age, etc.
  • Detailed descriptions about beauty service options
  • Hand, foot, and nail maintenance tips.
  • Matching nail types to events.
  • How to discuss your nail preferences with your salon artist.
  • Strategies for interesting nails, including stencils.
  • Nail color choices or polish information.
  • Post about beauty in general including tips and tricks
  • Share customer stories of transformations with a human angle and life improvements
  • Post personal stories of the staff and show the human face of your brand
  • Before and after photos of transformations
  • New products that you use and your recommendations if any
  • Thank you images to thank customers for giving you their trust and their business
  • Contests where your followers and customers can participate to get exclusive deals or coupons
  • Upcoming events in your salon
  • Upcoming events in your local community
  • Lifestyle related photos

 

 

 Facebook

Where Facebook can really be leveraged for your Hair and Beauty Salon is within the use of its extensive potential for user engagement. With over one billion active users, it is likely that many of your clients and competitors may already be there. Facebook provides the perfect way for you to share your services, post photos of your unique nail art or create contests or giveaways to promote brand loyalty and spread awareness of your brand. It is compatible with any type of multimedia content meaning you can post videos, photos, and links to external content, allowing it to enhance and support your other online marketing efforts e.g. blog posts. In addition to this, the robust advertising options offered by Facebook are a brilliant tool to leverage to ensure content is directly seen by a highly targeted audience of your choosing.

 

Facebook Strategy

  • Write relevant posts that engage consumers: Write posts that customers want to respond to and will enjoy giving their opinion on. An example of this would be to ask questions like “Summer has officially begun! What will be your summer haircut of choice?” This type of conversation starter is relevant, personalized, and something that majority of salon-goers would enjoy discussing.

 

  • Post pictures, and lots of them: One of the best ways businesses can use Facebook is as a visual medium. Your salon should be showcasing the work that it is most proud of. Whether that be fun holiday-themed manicures or gorgeous bridal party hairstyles, pictures provide an outlet to show what you can do.

 

  • Treat your Facebook Page as a miniature website: When customers arrive on your Facebook page they should be able to find all of the information they may be looking for. Use the various Facebook tabs to show your salon locations, services, photos and reviews.

 

  • Provide Facebook Fans with exclusive deals: When Liking a business on Facebook, customers like to feel as though they’re getting something special in return. You can entice them to like you on Facebook by offering 10% off their next visit or by sharing the Page on Facebook to receive a gift with their next purchase. In addition, you can provide discounts to Facebook Fans which are only redeemable by mentioning the specific Facebook Ad.

 

  • Target your Ads: Use Facebook Ads to their full ability through targeting. You may want to only target people located close to your salon, or those who like related Facebook Pages.

 

Purpose Key Metrics
Generate Engagement

Increase Brand Awareness

Generate Leads and Sales

Strengthen Customer Service

 Likes

Reach

Conversion

Engagement

 

 

Twitter

Where Twitter can really be leveraged for your Hair and Beauty Salon is within its use as a real-time public information network that gives your business greater exposure in web search results and makes it easy to build a community of potential customers who are there to discover and share interesting content. Twitter can also benefit your Hair and Beauty Salon through the use of both creating and joining in with existing Hashtags. Twitter Hashtags categorize topics and discussions so users can quickly and easily connect with businesses and individuals with a common interest. In addition they can also be used as keywords to help easily find and connect with your target audience.

 

Twitter Strategy

  • Use Twitter as an information source about your services: Post information about a specific service with a link to your website where customers can get more information. This is a great place to promote any training courses you offer to salons and clients.

 

  • Offers for Retweets: Twitter is a great platform for sharing as a simple Retweet from one of your Followers can generate you plenty of referrals. Offer incentives for Retweets such as “SNS dipping powders are formulated to build the health and strength of the natural nail. Odorless, fast-drying, and Long lasting! What colour would you choose for Summer? Receive £10 off you next visit by retweeting this post!”

 

  • Provide Group Deals: Salons are also a social place where people go to relax, enjoy, and feel good about themselves, so Twitter is a great way to engage with multiple people at once. An example would be to offer “Come in this weekend with 2 or more girlfriends and receive 20% off each on manicures, pedicures or a colour change just by showing this tweet!”

 

  • Use Twitter hashtags: Twitter is where hashtags were originally created, so use them on Twitter as well as Instagram. Insert hashtags at the end of updates, as a way to make contest posts unique or to tag a specific geographic location.

 

  • Share Articles on Twitter Related to your Salon: Use Twitter to share articles or interesting facts or stories in relation to your hair, nail or beauty salon. Customers who are following you on Twitter are interested in what you have to say and likely want your advice when it comes to their beauty or hair care.

 

Purpose Key Metrics
Increase Engagement

Establish Network

Increase Brand Awareness

Strengthen Customer Service

 

 Follower Quality and Growth

Brand Mentions

Retweets, Replies and Lists

Reach

Conversion Rate

 

 

Instagram

Where Instagram can really be leveraged for your Hair and Beauty Salon is within the use as an online portfolio to help drive brand awareness and sales. By showcasing products through interesting, exclusive and high-quality imagery, you will be able to give potential customers a shopping experience that can influence purchase behaviour.

 

Instagram Strategy

  • Stay on trend: Use trending hashtags to draw more users to your Instagram profile and to find out about your salon. An example would be to use #happyeaster as one hashtag to gain more views while showing a picture of a holiday themed manicure and showcasing the salon’s services.

 

  • Use geography to your advantage: Use hashtags to point out your location. That way future customers looking for a salon nearby may stumble upon your photo and your salon.

 

  • Use before and after pictures to showcase your stylists’ talent: Reviews and testimonials don’t need to just be a text post when it comes to social media. Use Instagram to show results in your salon. Before and after pictures show transformation and can grab users’ attention.

 

  • Be fun and quirky: Instagram users tend to be young and on trend, and enjoy fun, quirky posts in addition to just product or service-related posts. Once in a while a feel good post can engage your customers and you can use specific quotes or pictures that you feel defines your brand.

 

  • Do exclusive Instagram contests: Hold photo contests among your Followers, such as “Post a picture of your new summer manicure with the hashtag (such as #ILoveMy[Insert Business Name]Nails!) and be entered to win your next manicure for free!” These engage customers and are easy for customers to participate in by simply uploading a picture and including the proper hashtag.

 

  • Provide incentives for Instagram word-of-mouth: Provide incentives for customers to upload a picture of what they had done at your salon such as “Have a new hairstyle or cut from [insert business name] that you just love? Upload it to Instagram with the hashtag #ILoveMy[business name]Hair and receive 10% off your next visit.”

 

Purpose Key Metrics
Increase Brand Awareness

Engagement with visual assets

Showcase products

Showcase company culture

Showcase marketing events

Link back to website, blog, and other content assets

 

 Referral traffic

Shares and comments

View of photos

Page rankings on key terms from photo sharing sites

Product purchasing and lead generation

 

 

 

by Scarlett Darbyshire

How A Corporate Fitness Provider Can Utilize Social Media [Top Strategy Tips!]

The good news is that as more and more companies place employee health and well-being among their top priorities, established corporate fitness providers will always have a keen target audience. Employee health affects more than just home life, it affects work and productivity and that’s why nowadays companies are highly conscious of their employee well-being and are actively encouraging healthy initiatives such as healthy lunch deliveries and hiring businesses to manage and improve their employees’ health. With a corporate fitness centre considered an ideal way for businesses to demonstrate the high value they put on the well-being of their employees.

From this, with all the options out there for a business to invest in its staff well-being, it is up to your business to attract nationwide reach and awareness, demonstrating that you are the best option for employers to help their employees live healthier lifestyles and lead them toward optimal health and performance.

Social Media is a fantastic way to help build yourself a reputation as an industry- leading, top level service provider and knowledgeable source of useful and practical information that can help businesses achieve their goals. With the explosion of social media networks, you have easy access to a variety of free tools that you can use to advertise your services, showcase your skillset and knowledge and the people and businesses that you have helped, allowing you to connect with current and potential customers on a personal level.

Being a successful business online is essentially about generating conversations, creating and nurturing relationships and being trusted as an industry authority, with social media allowing you to achieve all these things in a timely and very cost effective manner. Ultimately, you need to demonstrate to a potential client that their business must invest in their employee well-being and must use the services of your business to do it because you have the expertise, the bespoke services and you have the social proof (recommendations from others) that convinces them you are the right choice over your competitors.

A corporate fitness provider therefore will be best served by channeling into using social media as a platform to promote their business services, news and activities and become an industry thought leader by sharing valuable, informative industry contributions and insights that will engage, evoke interest and provide advice to their audience.
Many corporate fitness providers already embrace social media and use it as a means to communicate and promote their business offerings and activities, post news and events, share interesting industry content and also to interact and engage with their customers. Moreover, a corporate fitness providers’ presence on social media platforms comes not only from its own online activity, but also from everyday visitors who share content, express their opinions and experiences, and post photos on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

 

Facebook –  Suggested 1+ Daily Post
Where Facebook can really be leveraged for corporate fitness providers is within the use of its extensive potential for user engagement. With over one billion active users, it is likely that many of your clients and competitors may already be there. It is compatible with any type of multimedia content meaning you can post videos, photos, and links to external content, allowing it to enhance and support your other online marketing efforts e.g. blog posts.

Purpose

  • Generate Engagement
  • Increase Brand Awareness
  • Generate Leads and Sales
  • Strengthen Customer Service

 

Key Metrics

  • Likes
  • Reach
  • Conversion
  • Engagement

 

Example Facebook Posts

 

 

  • The NHS has released new guidelines on the recommended daily Physical Activity level for adults. Are your employees reaching their recommended level to stay healthy? [Insert NHS Link]

 

  • FIT TIP: Did you know, listening to music with between 120-140 BPM can help increase your workouts efficiency without feeling the extra effort.
    Some suggestions;
    “Eye Of The Tiger” (109 BPM), Survivor
    “Don’t Stop Me Now” (154 BPM), Queen
    “Beat It” (139 BPM), Michael Jackson
    “Push It” (130 BPM), Salt-N-Pepa
    What’s your ultimate workout song?

 

Twitter – Suggested Minimum 5+ Daily Tweets
Where Twitter can really be leveraged for corporate fitness providers is within its use as a real-time public information network that gives your business greater exposure in web search results and makes it easy to build a community of potential customers who are there to discover and share interesting content. Twitter can also benefit your business through the use of both creating and joining in with existing Hashtags and Twitter Hours. Twitter Hashtags categorize topics and discussions so users can quickly and easily connect with businesses and individuals with a common interest. In addition they can also be used as keywords to help easily find and connect with your target audience. Example Twitter hashtags/ Hours to utilize are #BizHour, #FitnessHour, #MondayMotivation #FitnessTip #MotivationalQuote.

Purpose

  • Increase Engagement
  • Establish Network
  • Increase Brand Awareness
  • Strengthen Customer Service

Key Metrics

  • Follower Quality and Growth
  • Brand Mentions
  • Retweets, Replies and Lists
  • Reach
  • Conversion Rate

 

Example Tweets

From Gym Inductions to Personal Training and Physiotherapy, [INSERT YOUR BUSINESS NAME] can provide the full range of Health and Fitness Services to benefit your staff. Find out more: [Insert link to fitness services on website]
Great Article via @Freeletics! Sit Safe: How to Correct Your Posture Whilst at Your Desk [Insert Link https://www.freeletics.com/en/blog/correcting-your-sitting-posture/%5D

Good Afternoon #BizHour! Need to boost the health, wellbeing or motivation of your employees? We specialise in setting up and managing corporate fitness and wellbeing centres. Head over to our website to find out more: [link to website]

Did you know Sick days are costing UK employers about £29 billion a year as British workers take up to four times as many days off than rival economies, according to research from PwC.

Kick-start your #MondayMotivation with our workout of the week! [insert picture of branded Exercise picture]

 

Blog – Suggested 1x Weekly Post
Where Blogging can be really utilized for corporate fitness providers is its use in improving search engine rankings and boosting industry perception placing you as an authority in your sector. By regularly updating your corporate Blog with valuable, interesting and relevant industry analysis and comment, it shows that you have a deep interest in your sector and are more informed than the average participant; giving potential clients a compelling reason to choose you over competitors.

Purpose

  • Increase Engagement
  • Increase SEO
  • Establish Authority
  • Generate Brand Awareness

Key Metrics

  • Reach
  • Engagement
  • Authority Share – Cites and References
  • Audience Growth
  • Conversion Rate
  • Subscribers
  • SEO Improvements

 

Example Blog Posts

  • 10 of the Best Business and Motivational Quotes
  • Report: The latest UK Stats and Figures on Employee Well-Being Revealed
  • Gluten-­‐free or gluten-­‐fad? Should Your Business Cafeteria be Joining in with the Latest Trend to go Gluten-­‐Free?
  • Ten Tips for Keeping Your Employees Motivated
  • Staff Well-being Transformation Case Study: How One Business increased its profit by 275% with [INSERT YOUR BUSINESS NAME]
  • A-Z of Fitness Jargon: 26 terms you need to know

 

LinkedIn – Suggested 1+ Daily Post
Where LinkedIn can really be leveraged for corporate fitness providers is within the ability to demonstrate expertise and show yourself as an authority within your sector. Furthermore, it can be utilised as an avenue to promote career opportunities, general business news and updates, raise brand awareness and as a resourceful knowledge base where you can learn, discuss and stay on top of industry news as well as connect with other professionals in your industry.

Purpose

  • Increase Brand Awareness
  • Generate Leads and Sales
  • Connections and Networking
  • Increase Authority

 

Key Metrics

  • Number of Business Leads
  • Performance of Updates
  • Engagement Rate
  • Follower Demographics

 

Example Posts

Case Study: Since a University employed [INSERT YOUR BUSINESS NAME] to deliver a number of solutions, income improved by 96% and profit increased by 275%. Could your University be next to see the benefits? Get in Touch [Insert Link to Case Study on Website]
May is National Walking Month. Why not encourage and incentivise your employees to take part in walking challenges throughout the month? For inspiration check out our latest blog post giving you ten top tips and ideas for your National Walking Month promotion to get your employees moving and motivated!
Our latest fitness development in a large Cheshire business is well under way! [Insert Picture of gym equipment being put together in room or a sneak peek of the plans]

 

Hopefully, this quick guide has given you a good idea of a plan of action on how to make a success of social media. The platforms covered are a great place to start when it comes to driving traffic to your website, increasing authority and brand awareness. Instagram can also be a prime platform for your social media marketing. It’s a highly visual platform, giving you the perfect opportunity to show off high-quality images of your facilities, clients, transformation photos, fitness tips etc. Don’t forget to use hashtags to reach other users in your target market!

Ultimately, by ensuring you consistently put your time into developing your presence on each of them, you’ll be rewarded with a strong, powerful presence that will help generate leads and grow your business!

 

by Scarlett Darbyshire

Monthly Must-Do Checklist to Keep Your Social Media Profiles Fresh!

In order to keep your social media platforms fresh, relevant and effective there are several monthly maintenance jobs you need to complete. By regularly monitoring your pages and making it a habit to assess your settings, competitors and other important aspects, you ensure that your social media marketing is highly effective helping you to maximise your ROI.

 

  • Update Your Bios and Descriptions: Are your descriptions on your platforms relevant and up to date? Ensure you regularly update your bios with and new key information, links, messages or any other important information such as a new email address or website link.

 

  • Update Your Logos, Cover Images, Banners and Backgrounds: Are you logos and other visual identity covers up to date and relevant? By updating your social media logo and cover images to represent the current trends, seasons and any other important info like offers, sales and promotions, you keep your pages feeling fresh for your fans and followers.

 

  • Organise your Followings: If you follow a lot of blogs or have a large Twitter following it is worthwhile getting organised with up to date lists that contain the content and people you want to be able to find easily. On Twitter itself you can create lists based on interests or organise the updates from important users and influencers, if you already utilise this feature then ensure it is kept up to date and organised. If you don’t use Twitter lists then it’s worthwhile that you start.

 

  • Assess your Competitors Pages: Regularly examining what your competitors are doing on their social media platforms can reveal a lot of useful information to help you inform your own strategy. Explore keys are such as which social media platforms they are using, How engaged their fans are, what types of content they share , which types of content draw the most engagement, are they doing anything new? And are they using any social media platforms that you aren’t?

 

  • Review Page Permissions and Privacy Settings: It is important for security purposes that you review who has access to your social media pages, both people and third party applications and update these permissions accordingly. Ideally if a person who knows your passwords has since left your business you should change all of your passwords immediately. As a general rule of thumb however you should look to update your passwords on a quarterly or every few months basis.

 

  • Explore New Options and Keep up With Trends and Developments: Every month you should look at any emerging trends and developments in your industry and social media platforms that you need to be aware of and that you can utilise. Regularly check to see if you’re missing out on any new network features that could benefit you by checking the official websites and blogs of your social media platforms. You should also be up to date on industry trends, developments and any new emerging social media platforms by regularly reading articles and following industry influencers.

 

  • Revisit and Assess Goals: Key to your success is meeting your social media goals and objectives so ensure you regularly take a look at your analytics across your social media platforms to ensure you are meeting all aspects of them. As time progresses you may find your strategy and goals need to change or adapt therefore it is important to regularly assess your goals and ensure they are still the ones you want to aim for.

 

This is an excerpt from my new book “The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Social Media for Small Businesses” out now in Paperback on Amazon! Head over there now for more of a Free preview! http://amzn.eu/2uuslrD

 

by Scarlett Darbyshire

Instagram: Why Your Business Needs it and Top Tips for Success!

At its most basic, Instagram is a social networking app made for sharing photos and videos from a smartphone. From a marketing perspective, Instagram makes a strong business case with 800 million monthly active users. When compared among the major social networks, only Facebook and YouTube have more people logging in each month. Instagram provides a huge asset for visual content, which we all know is driving social like none other and has developed itself into a fully-fledged, global platform that allows brands to humanize their content, showcase their products, inspire their audience and promote their brand all in a friendly, authentic way without directly selling to your customers.

 

What’s good about Instagram?

  • One of the best attributes about Instagram is that it greatly accomplishes its original goal: fast, easy, and efficient photo-sharing. Not only this but photos shared via Instagram are reaching a huge audience, thanks to steady user adoption. People engage better with visuals rather than words. It’s widely known that photos rule when it comes to marketing as photos make an emotional connection in a way that text cannot. They make your company and brand more relatable and of course, are fun and engaging.
  • No Character And Caption Limit. While there are some limits when it comes to the bio and username, unlike some social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram does not have a character limit when it comes to the image caption. The description of every post can be as long as you want it to be.
  • Despite being one of the most popular and highly used social media platform after Facebook, the number of local businesses making use of Instagram is still very limited – which is great as it means competition is still considerably low, unlike in the case of other social platforms like Facebook.

 

What’s not so good about Instagram?           

  • Since Instagram is a visual tool, you need to have appealing content to share to stand any chance of success on this platform.
  • Instagram is a service that is designed to be used with mobile devices, such as tablet computers or smart phones. It has very limited functionality on desktop computers.
  • Instagram is only an iPhone and Android app. If you have a Blackberry or Linux it won’t work. That means you won’t be reaching all your target audience.

 

Need to Know Facts, Stats and Tips about Instagram

  • More than 800 million active monthly users
  • More than half (51%) of the platform’s active users visit the site daily
  • 35% say they check it multiple times a day.
  • 60% of Instagram users say that they have heard first about a product or a service from this social media platform.
  • 70% of Instagram users have spent time looking up a brand on the platform.
  • Instagram, brands enjoy regular engagement with 4 percent of their total followers. On networks like Facebook and Twitter, engagement is less than 0.1 percent. (source: Forrester)
  • 70% of Instagram users report having looked up a brand on the platform (source: Iconosquare)
  • 62% of users follow a brand on Instagram (source: Iconosquare)
  • Your audience engagement rate could be 15 times more on Instagram than on Facebook and 20 times more on Instagram than on Twitter.
  • Brands on Instagram with a following of greater than 100K can grow by over 100% biannually.
  • 75% of Instagram users who view brand posts act on the information in them.

 

 

Why You Need Instagram For Your Business

From the boom in popularity of Instagram Stories, to the very impressive stats of user adoption engagement and the recent expansion of advertising opportunities—it’s a good time to be using Instagram for business. Only if your business can thrive in this creative and inherently visual platform though.

 

Tips For Success

  • Find an Interesting Angle: Find a creative angle for a photo to showcase your product in an interesting way. Think about whether you should show the entire product, frame the shot a certain way or include another item to accompany the product. Whilst you should experiment with different content, once you find the most effective angle for your products, make sure you prioritize that approach in your content calendar to maximize engagement opportunities.

 

  • Focus on Lighting: The lighting in a photo can tell a story about your brand so whether photos are taken indoors or outdoors, good lighting is crucial. Even with careful tweaking, Instagram’s editing tools often can’t fix a photo taken with poor lighting. Therefore it’s vital to get this basic photography skill nailed down in every photo before you even think about using the advanced filters.

 

  • Use a Filter: Each filter has a unique story and feel that it communicates. There is an array of filters at your disposal to communicate a particular mood for your brand and products. Whilst a ‘normal’ photo is the most popular choice people use and indeed there is an immensely popular #nofilter hashtag dedicated for that purpose, using artistically edited photos can add a lot to your photo.  To use a filter, once you’ve taken or uploaded a photo or video Tap Next, then tap the filter you’d like to apply. Tap the filter again if you want to adjust filter strength up or down using the slider. The simply tap Done to save your change. The most popular way to upload an image or video is without any filter at all. But for those who do like to use them, Clarendon is the most popular option followed by Gingham, Juno and Lark. The Most-used Instagram Stories Face Filters are Puppy, Bunny, Koala, Genius and Love.

 

  • Tell a Story With the Caption: You can give life to a photo with the caption and it’s important to learn what type of description resonates best with your audience.

 

  • Create a Hashtag Campaign: User-generated content is one of the best ways to promote your community and products. Create a brand-centric hashtag campaign for your followers to use in their posts. Remember that engagement is a two-way street so follow and interact with your followers that are using it and like the posts that are positive and aesthetically aligned with your brand.

 

  • Use a Call to Action: Ensure every piece of content has a purpose by adding a call to action to it which prompts customers to do something. It could be as simple as “Shop Now!” or “Download our app.” Whatever you choose, make sure the action is relevant to your post as this is a great way to gain new followers.

 

  • Partner With Influencers: Consider partnering with influencers to create compelling content to promote your products and increase your reach. Influencers already have built-in distribution lists with large groups of followers and are trusted for their opinions on what products to purchase. By working with influencers, you harness their popularity and tap into their vast and relevant audience which will expand your own follower count and boost sales.

 

  • Best Times to Post: Instagram is a mobile app so users are on the platform at all times of the day. However, there are a few studies out there that have found the optimal times to post on Instagram for peak engagement to be Mondays and Thursdays at any time except between 3:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m and overall, users tend to engage with more content during off-work hours on weekdays. Simply think in the mind frame of your audience and work out when they are most likely to be looking on their phone. For example, if your target audience is a Teacher for example, they are most likely to be active during the evening when they are back home as opposed to during the day when they will be busy teaching.

 

  • Link Instagram to Your Facebook Page: One of Instagram’s unique features is that it allows you to share your content seamlessly across other social networking sites. Linking your Instagram to your other social accounts like Facebook will increase the number of eyes on your posts and allows you to benefit from targeting both audiences.Be careful however as its not recommended to automatically link you Instagram to evry one of your other social platforms as what works on Instagram probably won’t yield the same results on other channels and it’s important to tailor your content to each platform. Note: Your Facebook Page will already be linked to your Instagram if you set up an Instagram business profile. To link your Facebook page to your Instagram account, start in your Instagram profile by going to the gear in the upper right corner. In the “Options” menu, scroll down to “Settings” and look for “Linked Accounts.” If you’re not already logged into Facebook on your phone, you’ll be prompted to do so, and then you’ll need to pick the Facebook Business Page you’d like to link. Next, you’ll be directed to the “Share Settings” menu. The Facebook logo should be blue to indicate that sharing is on.

 

  • How to See Posts You’ve Liked: This is more of general useful little tip, but handy nonetheless! You can easily check out all the posts you’ve Liked in the “Options” menu of your profile. Press the gear icon and select “Posts You’ve Liked.” Then scroll down until you find the photo or video you’re looking for.

 

  • How to Reorder Instagram Filters: To save precious time when uploading photos, Instagram lets you reorder filters so you can position the ones you use most often at the beginning of your options. To reorder or hide filters, begin editing a post like you normally would. Scroll to the far right in the filter options and click the “Manage” gear icon. Hold your finger down on the three grey lines and drag the filter up or down. To hide a filter, uncheck it on the right side of your screen.

 

  • Hide Posts You’ve Been Tagged In: If someone tags your brand in a post, it will show up when you click the person avatar in right icon on your profile. To remove a tagged post, click the three dots in the top right corner and choose “Hide Photos.” Select the posts you want to remove and click “Hide Photos” again. This won’t remove the posts from Instagram, but it will remove them from your profile. If you don’t want to have to remove tagged posts, you can manually choose just to include the ones you do like. Click the three dots again and press “Tagging Options.” You can then choose to “Add Manually.” From here on out, you’ll be notified when someone tags you in a photo. When that happens, tap on the photo you were tagged in and choose “Show on Profile.”

 

  • Utilize Available Tools: There are several useful Instagram marketing tools that will help you get the most out of your marketing campaigns.

 

Ones for Planning, editing, scheduling

Sprout Social: A complete social media management tool that offers access to a range of very useful areas from managing multiple Instagram accounts, to robust analytics and planning and scheduling capabilities. You can also communicate easier with your customers, monitor hashtags and track posts from Instagram locations.

Hootsuite: One of the most popular platforms for social media management. You can plan campaigns, schedule posts and analyze results of marketing campaigns for multiple social media platforms all in one handy place.

 

Ones for measuring performance and selling products

Crowdfire: This tool help monitor your account, providing useful insights such as those of your new followers or recent unfollows, it will also find the best moments of the day to post and the best and most suitable hashtags for your campaign.

INK361: This tool gives you a complete package that allows you to manage and analyse your account, as well as delivering useful statistics based on timing, hashtags, location, number of likes and comments.

Websta is a free analytics tool for Instagram that will help you grow your account, understand your audience, customize your Instagram feed, follow posts chronologically, explore hot brands, users and hashtags and engage with your followers.

 

This is an excerpt from my new book “The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Social Media for Small Businesses” out now in Paperback on Amazon! Head over there now for more of a Free preview! http://amzn.eu/2uuslrD

 

by Scarlett Darbyshire

How to Create a Branded YouTube Channel that Gets you Noticed

YouTube is the most popular video hosting and sharing platform with over one and a half billion active users. Businesses have utilised the benefits of YouTube, recognising that with the power of video, YouTube’s massive audience, and AdWords’ targeting tools, you have the ability to reach and impact potential customers all around the world. Having the ability to embed a YouTube video player on your website or blog also means you can easily share your video on Facebook, Twitter and other social media network making it easy to efficiently share your story and build your business online.

What’s Good About YouTube?

  • A great tool for improving search engine rankings
  • It is a free platform for advertisements

 

What’s Not so Good About YouTube?

  • Not useful for businesses where videos are not relevant or useful to them
  • A successful YouTube channel needs a consistent uploading schedule so is not suitable for companies without the time or resources to keep producing quality videos

 

Should your Business Have a YouTube Channel?

If your target audience and customers are watching videos on YouTube related to your industry, then you need have a YouTube channel to attract that audience. YouTube is great for businesses that are innately visual and regularly produce videos that are product informative, demonstrations of products or services and generally informative and entertaining content that will be valued by a certain group. The sheer audience size of YouTube attracts many businesses to YouTube but with a lot of competition to face businesses should only use YouTube if they can regularly and consistently produce good quality, varied, fresh and entertaining videos.

 

Follow these top tips to create a successful YouTube Channel;

 

Always Create Great Content

The key to building an audience and maintaining a successful presence is to always provide content that is valuable, relevant and entertaining to the viewer. YouTube provides you with a great platform to showcase your visual creativity and show that you understand and care about your audience enough to consistency produce a variety of videos that address consumer needs and genuinely interest and provide value to them.

 

Make Your Videos Easy to Find

YouTube is very heavily saturated with videos making it harder than ever to get your videos noticed. Simply uploading your video and waiting for people to come across it will not suffice. Rather, you need to make it easy for the right audience to discover your videos by applying several key factors in your videos;

  • Use relevant keywords and search categories to attract your target audience
  • Embed your YouTube videos onto your website
  • Share your videos across social networks
  • Include your website URL in the video description
  • Ensure your video is categorised and tagged correctly and relevantly
  • Consider advertising to give your videos a boost

 

Appeal to your Target Audience

With so much choice for the consumer, getting your video noticed can be a difficult task.  The key to ensuring you stand a better chance of getting noticed is to do your research and find out exactly what your audience is watching and searching for on YouTube and then apply this knowledge to your own efforts. You will better reach your audience if you know what type of content resonates best with them and directly provide solutions for them or answer their questions and queries with your videos.

 

Thoroughly Brand your YouTube Channel

Your YouTube channel needs to act as a hub of your brand making it clear to the viewer who you are when they arrive on your page. Ensure you fully utilise the customisable features of your channel from the background to the video cover image to ensure that you create a branded environment for your audience where they trust that it is your brand page and where they are welcomed and encouraged to interact. There are several key areas to utilise to ensure you don’t miss any branding opportunities on your page;

  • Include links to your website
  • Effectively and clearly communicate your brand and purpose in the description
  • Ensure all creative aspects (colours, graphics, typography etc.) reflect your brand.

 

Know Your Limits

Maintaining a successful YouTube presence takes a lot of consistent and continual effort. From uploading content to creating titles, responding to comments, tracking analytics and general promotion, maintaining your account can easily become a very time consuming role. From this, ensure the person who maintains it has the time, talent and expertise to run it effectively as you are publicly representing your brand to a vast audience online so you do not want to give them a negative impression by ineffectively using YouTube. If you find yourself or the person running your account is struggling then strongly consider outsourcing to a specialist who has the adequate skill set to represent your brand well. Your business can only benefit from you knowing your limits and realising when the time is right to get a professional on board.

 

Listen to and act on What Your Analytics Tell You

Track your videos performance through your analytics will help you to understand your audience, how they interact with your videos and what content resonates best with them. Armed with this information, you gain a very advantageous position where you can use this information to help you optimise your future videos to ensure you are directly addressing your target audience needs, making them more likely to keep coming back to your channel and share your content with others.

 

Be Sociable and Engage Your Audience

To fully utilise the benefits of YouTube for your business you need to embrace the social aspect of the social network and continually interact and engage with your audience and other users. You need to be actively dedicated to your page looking for opportunities to interact with others and respond to comments and feedback on your videos. YouTube has very much developed into an active online community which you need to be a part of and participate in. There is much to gain in engaging with users and audiences from potential business opportunities, partnerships with other users and by listening to your audience you can get to know them better helping to create better content that is going to attract them in the future.

 

Keep Your Channel Updated and Fresh

Once you have set up your channel, developed a solid posting strategy and perfected your channel design you are well on your way to a strong YouTube presence but your work is by no means finished. In order to keep the attention of your audience and attract new ones you need to actively keep your channel updated with fresh content and continually analyse your analytics to gauge your audience response to your videos to ensure you are consistently targeting their needs with your videos.  Continually look to see how you can better enhance your audience’s experience with your videos and act on what your analytics tell you, positive and negative about your efforts and respond accordingly.

 

Be Aware of YouTube’s Future Trends & Updates

As new technology emerges and YouTube grows and develops it is likely to make changes that can affect your business marketing. Ensure you stay aware of changing trends and utilise any new developments within YouTube and a broader technical sense to help better your videos and audience video experience.

 

This is an excerpt from my new book “The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Social Media for Small Businesses” out now in Paperback on Amazon! Head over there now for more of a Free preview! http://amzn.eu/2uuslrD

 

by Scarlett Darbyshire

Questions to Ask Before You Get Started Using LinkedIn for Business

Who is Going to Set up and Maintain my Business Page?

Before you begin, you need to have a clear idea of who is going to be creating and maintaining your LinkedIn business page. Whether you assign the role to an existing member of staff or hire an external social media manager you need to ensure that the person that will be in charge of representing your business on LinkedIn is capable, with the knowledge and experience of how to successfully utilise LinkedIn and ultimately make it a successful addition to your marketing strategy.

 

How Should I Portray my Business?

Like with any other public platform you need to consider how you are going to portray your business to others and how you are going to link it with your other marketing efforts. As part of this consideration you will need to address areas such as how you are going to tie your branding to the overall typography and visual aspects of the page to what type of voice you want to portray within your status updates and of course what your overall objectives are for the page. Making sure your business is presented in a representative and appealing way is crucial so you need to ensure you have a clear understanding of how you want your business to appear to your audience and how and what you can utilise to help you achieve it.

 

What Images and Resources can I Utilise?

LinkedIn allows you opportunities to utilise the visual on your page. From the large cover image to allowing a variety of content types to be shared within updates, it is vital that you pull your resources and utilise these areas to help make your business inform, engage and stand out from the crowd. So look to see what visual aspects of LinkedIn you can use to your advantage, remembering to choose attention-grabbing images that reflect your brand and draws people in to learn more about your business. You also could and should explore the use of different types of content within your updates, from podcasts to eBooks and using brand videos. Mixing up the types of content you share grabs attention and keeps people engaged so pull the resources you have at your disposal, from customer testimonials, product demonstrations videos, to webinar footage and behind-the-scenes pictures and share them with your audience.

 

Have I Got a Clear Content Strategy in Place?

Posting status updates lets you reach out to and share news with LinkedIn members who have chosen to follow your business page. From this you need to utilise this connection and form a content strategy that provides value to and resonates with your target audience. You will come to learn what content formats they prefer, what content they interact with most, at what times and how many updates you need to post daily or weekly to maximise effectiveness. Just remember to always share content that is going to entertain, inform and be relevant to your audience and you are likely to be rewarded with engagement and  a two-way conversation with your followers that can create business opportunities, help you learn more about your customers’ needs and other beneficial information that can aid your business in the future.

 

How am I Going to Promote my Page?

You need to consider how you are going to let others know about your page which will involve utilising opportunities both online and offline. Online you can use a variety of methods from using your other social media platforms to encourage others to visit your page, to adding a LinkedIn “follow” button to your business website and putting your company page’s URL email signature and your e-newsletters. You can also encourage your employees to create their own LinkedIn profiles and ask them to interact with your business page by sharing statuses and directing connections to the page. Offline you can verbally tell others of your page in any conferences, meetings in addition to putting the URL on your business card, packing and anywhere else your customers/ prospects will see it.

How am I Going to Measure the Success of my Page?

How you define the success of you page will depend on what your overall objectives are for your page. LinkedIn provides a range of analytics that show everything from who’s visiting your page to what types of content they click on, like and share and at what rates so remember to continually analyse these analytics to see whether you are meeting your objectives for you page and what if any areas are in need of improvement and revaluation.

 

This is an excerpt from my new book “The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Social Media for Small Businesses” out now in Paperback on Amazon! Head over there now for more of a Free preview! http://amzn.eu/2uuslrD

 

by Scarlett Darbyshire

Step By Step Guide to Creating an Effective LinkedIn Personal Profile

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional online network, with over 500 million active users spanning more than 200 countries. The network is primarily centred on careers and network building and is highly popular with business-to-business users. It enables users to connect and share content with other professionals, including colleagues as well as potential employers, business partners, and new employees. It is also beneficial for those looking to share and discover industry news and knowledge and for those looking for jobs.

The Profile Summary

The summary area of your LinkedIn Profile constitutes the most important part of the entire page because it is the first thing readers’ scan after reading your name and tagline. For this reason your summary must be compelling. Here are some suggestions that will improve your summary:

  • Write it in the first person ‘I am’ etc. as it shows an authenticity that you miss out on when writing in the third person.
  • Write your Summary in the Who / What / Goals format. Clearly stating who you are, what you do with the final section providing information about your professional goals and aspirations.
  • Read your summary and keep asking yourself ‘so what?’ as this will help you to pin point areas for improvement.

 

Optimise your Profile for SEO Benefit

Suggestions for optimising your LinkedIn Profile for SEO benefit include:

  • Customise the URL for your public profile
  • Embed keywords strategically throughout your profile
  • Try to list up to the maximum of three links in the billboard area (e.g., your business website, your personal website, your blog). When entering the anchor text for the hyperlink, embed as many of your keywords as possible.

Fill Out Every Section Fully

  • Emphasize Your Professional Skills

LinkedIn showcases your top 10 skills based on endorsements so people know where you excel. Make sure you fully optimize and fill out as many specific keywords you can to help you get quick endorsements from your connections for those skills.

  • Promote Your Projects

Promote and highlight your products, services and projects in the Projects section. Directly link each project to your website and include team members when applicable.

  • Link to Your Publications

The Publications section is perfect if you’re an author, regular contributor to top publications, have eBooks, white papers and other company content that you want to promote. You can directly link each publication to where visitors can buy your books, link to author profile pages and also to landing pages for your content.

  • Share Your Honours and Awards

This section is where you can highlight notable lists and mentions you’ve received from recognized authorities and publications in your industry.

  • Showcase Specialized Certifications

The Certifications section allows you to showcase your specialised educational achievements within your industry. If your business has received a certification for your industry, promote and showcase it here so people can learn more about it.

  • Highlight Industry-Related Coursework

If you’ve taken any courses that are relevant and apply to your business, you can list them in the Courses section. This can include coursework you completed at university, on-the-job training course and those offered by recognised organizations in your industry.

  • Feature Your Professional Memberships

If you belong to professional organizations in your industry, use the Organizations section to highlight your membership and the position you hold/have held.

  • Demonstrate Language Proficiency

Demand for people who speak several languages is on the rise. Therefore, if you are fluent in multiple languages, include that information in the Languages section.

  • Highlight Your LinkedIn Groups

When you join LinkedIn groups, you have the option of listing them on your profile, as shown in the Groups section below.  You should utilise this opportunity as this can benefit you three-fold:

  • People who want to get to know you can do so by joining the groups you’re in and engaging with you there.
  • If you run groups for your business, you can display them on your profile to help increase membership.
  • Joining groups related to your industry means you can add more keywords to your profile
  • Publicise Your Interests

When you follow businesses, news channels, publishers and influencers found on LinkedIn Pulse, they will appear in the Following section of your profile. Use this section to optimise your profile for specific keywords, highlight publications that you may contribute to and showcase your customers.

  • Support Your Causes

One in five hiring managers has chosen a candidate based on his or her volunteer experience so add the Volunteer section to your profile to show others that you also care about helping others. For non-profits, this is also a great way to promote your organization and cause.

 

Keep Your Network Posted with Status Updates

Keeping your network posted with status updates should be a routine procedure. It gives you the opportunity to share valuable information with your network about what you’re doing. Done right, status updates can engage your followers, create leads, and facilitate customer conversion. Here are some tips on how to optimise your status updates:

  • Leverage the power of status updates by embedding special keywords when posting
  • Focus on sharing informative and useful updates as that is the information members expect from connections they follow on LinkedIn
  • Post status updates encouraging your followers to interact with you and this includes using a clear call to action within your post
  • Post regularly and consistently and you will reach more of your audience and extend your reach.

 

Use Your Profile as a Central Hub

When searching for someone on Google in most cases their LinkedIn profile is seen on the first page with the vast majority appearing in the first five results. This means that you need keep your profile current and up to date to highlight your experience and expertise and in addition requires that your profile needs to become a central source for connecting all of your other social media platforms. LinkedIn has many available tools for you to utilise that can link your profile with your Blog and Twitter feed among others so is a great way to support and drive attention to your other sites.

 

Add Rich Visual Content to Your LinkedIn Profile

Throughout your profile LinkedIn provides you with the opportunity to visually enhance your profile so you need to leverage this opportunity. Add some oomph to your profile by adding some up to date, rich, visual content and you will help yourself and your profile to stand out from the rest and get noticed. Embracing the visual in social media marketing is highly important so utilise this and share with your audience creative, informative and engaging visual elements such as pictures, SlideShare presentations and videos. A key thing is to also remember not to just create and then forget your newly visual profile, rather, actively update and refresh your profile with current, fresh and valuable content such as examples of new work, recent articles and features in the press.

Connect with New Contacts in Groups and Answers

Joining and contributing to LinkedIn Groups helps to locate people with shared interests and establish valuable new connections. In addition to the benefit of increased traffic to your profile page, participating within a Group has the added benefit of learning from others and participation in a group or within the LinkedIn Answers section allows you to highlight your ideas and insight. The more you participate, the more you’ll build credibility and trust within your industry. If you’re contributing valuable content, you will soon improve your own reputation as an invaluable resource on select topics by other industry connections.

 

Give and Get Recommendations

Recommendations from colleagues, business partners and satisfied clients go a long way in establishing your value and credibility. As either an employee or a business, a recommendation can carry a great deal of weight in the eyes of future customers or employers as they essentially act as solid examples of a good experience with you in a personal manner. If you want to get recommendations, use LinkedIn to give them to people you’ve worked with and who have done a great job for you and they will likely reciprocate. Similarly with the new Endorsement feature, if you endorse someone, they’ll be notified and you’re likely to get a reciprocal endorsement in return.

Add, Remove, and Rearrange Entire Sections of Your Profile

LinkedIn enables you to reorder entire sections of your profile in any way that you prefer. This is a great feature to help you optimise your profile as you can place your most important sections in prominent places and delete any that are not relevant to you for example. Simply go into edit mode, hover your mouse over the double-sided arrow in each section. Your mouse will turn into a four-arrowed icon, at which point you can click, then drag and drop to another position on your profile.

Edit Your Public Profile Settings

You want to ensure that people can find your profile when they do a public search. You ideally want to show public viewers as much as possible to convince them to click to view your full profile and make a connection. Locate the Privacy & Settings option on your LinkedIn homepage and click Manage. To access your public profile settings, click your profile image and select the Privacy & Settings option. On the next page, click Edit Your Public Profile to see what items are displayed on your public profile. The right side of the page shows a list of items that are displayed on your private profile and you can choose which items to show on your public profile. You can choose to share only a few sections of your profile with public viewers or be fully transparent and show all sections. Just ensure that you enable the setting that allows anyone to see your public profile. You may feel uneasy about showing your entire profile but it is important to do so as your public profile will never display rich-text media like videos or full-text recommendations, therefore, your description of your job experience is the most important part of your profile.

 

Consider Upgrading Your LinkedIn Account

The goal of improving your public image on LinkedIn is to get high-quality connections. With a premium plan, you gain access to additional features such as seeing people who viewed your profile, requesting and making introductions and mailing other users from within LinkedIn. These are features that could greatly benefit your business so consider upgrading your account if you are in a position to do so.

 

This is an excerpt from my new book “The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Social Media for Small Businesses” out now in Paperback on Amazon! Head over there now for more of a Free preview! http://amzn.eu/2uuslrD