Growing slowly is still growing!!!
Over the past 2 weeks the topic of Social Media has come up a number of times. The main platform that has been discussed has been that of Instagram!! A huge thank you to Suzi Fish who I had my most recent discussion with. Suzi is Empowering Natural Beauty through the products of Tropic.
The first thing you need to do is STOP. Stop beating yourself up for not being consistent or for not even having Social Media. With the advancements in technology, of algorithms and ever changing trends, Social Media Marketing is a full time job in itself.
If you have a budget for this then great! However, a lot of small to medium businesses are trying to navigate this themselves and hopefully, this blog will help take away some of the fear and remind you that YOU can do this.
As with anything in business moving forward is moving, so whether you post every hour or once a week, posting something is a step in the right direction and will help you start your journey.
Stories:
These are great for sharing a quick snap shot or short video. They stay on your story for 24 hours and allow an up to date touch point for visitors to see what you are up to at that moment. With the option to add music, sound, text and tag other profiles Your Video Team love using this to quickly remind you “We are still here” as well as give sneak peaks of what we are up to.
Posts:
Posts are there permanently allowing followers to see the progression of the business and clients you are working alongside. Visitors can view products and services available, check out testimonials and see completed work. The added advantage is that you can accompany the post with text to get across a specific message. With the added options of tagging people/businesses, including music, targeting topics, tagging locations and adding hashtags, posts are great to say “Hey look what we’ve done”
Reels:
Now, reels is the area that Instagram is really pushing currently. This is a great area to test those algorithms and see what does and doesn’t work. Reels does take a little more thought and work but when done right can be great. First you choose a song or sound bite and then you layer that with images or video snippets to create up to a 90 second video. As with stories it allows you to write a blurb to accompany the footage with tags, hashtags and location markers. They are a great way to do a start to finish video in just 90 seconds.
Highlights:
The highlights is a chance to, well, Highlight stories that have already timed out. With stories only lasting 24 hours, there are occasions when you want to revisit a story and showcase it again. It could be that you spent a day only updating through stories and so now want to retrieve that content to create a highlight. It may be you want to showcase people you have met on your journey or products you have seen. The highlights mimic your story and allow your story to now be accessible all the time.
So, there we have it. A very quick and simple overview of what you can do on Instagram. There are 3 important points you need to remember:
Get signed up - The first thing you need to do is sign up and get your ‘handle’ (The @ name people will use to search and tag you) If anything, this will allow people to tag you and allow your content to build without you even having to lift a finger.
Have Fun - As I said at the beginning, posting once a week is better than not posting at all. Breath and just have fun, play with filters, music and tags. Don’t chase the reach, this could drive you insane!!
Don’t stress - With a professional profile you will be able to see the reach of posts, stories and reels. Don’t chase the reach. The first step is getting on Instagram, later down the line we can worry about who you’re reaching and how many. Save this for you future Marketing Manager!!
Don’t forget tag @YVT_UK with the #MovingForward
