How to use instagram to build brand trust
Instagram now has over 800 million active users. It is unarguably one the most far reaching social media platforms you can get your hands on. Instagram has proven itself to be a great advertising platform for businesses and shows no signs of slowing down. eMarketer estimated the worldwide ad revenues to exceed $10 billion dollars by this year. This is quite an increase from just under $2 billion in 2016.If you’re not already using Instagram to increase the reach and build brand awareness, you’re missing out. Thankfully, its relatively easy to get your business up and running, you just need enough time and effort to implement a well thought out strategy. STUDY Your first step should be going out and finding other business similar to yours and studying what they are currently posting. Look at the colours, the type of imagery, the people in the photos, the location etc. Think about how it makes you feel when you see their content, what kind of emotion are they pulling from you, does it make you want to be a part of their culture?If yes, then model what they are doing. We aren’t saying to copying what they’re doing, but for now, write down things that you like and things that you don’t like. WHAT TO POST Now that you have some idea on what your competitors are posting and the angle they’re going for, it’s time to decide on what you want to start posting! This changes entirely on industry to industry and obviously I don’t know what kind of legal obligations you may have within yours. But, you want to be posting content that is; 1) Relative to your industry. 2) Speaks how you want your ideal customer to speak. And 3) Keeps existing and potential customers engaged with your brand. So hopefully you already know your ideal customer, or at least have some idea of who they are, what they do, where they hang out and what other kind of things they spend their money on. We have found that it is best to actually give this “ideal customer” a name, give them an outfit, hair style and friends. It might seem a bit odd, but it will help you think and realise who your target market it. And hey, doesn’t hurt to try. WHEN TO POST Instagram has changed its algorithms a lot in the recent years, to the point that it almost doesn’t matter ‘when’ you post, but more so ‘how often’ you post. Instagram favours regular, high quality and high engaged content. It is a general recommendation that you post at least once per day, twice if you feel the need to. And that’s just for the standard Instagram ‘feed’ post, Instagram stories is a whole other mind field. Now, I’m sure we all follow someone who feels the need to put every waking minute of their lives on the instagram stories, we are saying to do this. But, I believe business owners could take a leaf out of their book. Instagram stories are a great way to drive existing followers to your page and keep them in the loop! It won’t necessarily get your page discovered by new people (that’s what your Instagram Feed posts are for), but when they do land on your page and you have a story that’s been posted in the last 24 hours, they are liking to look. It helps keep your profile looking lively and active, and is just another great way to keep engagement up on your profile. Instagram the amazing platform Instagram is an amazing platform for building your brands image and communicating with your existing and potential customers. Try not to overthink your content, keep it lighthearted, keep up with current trends and keep your audience engaged.If you are struggling to come up with ideas or are just feeling overwhelmed with the road ahead for your business and instagram, get in contact with us today! We over free consultation calls, so you have nothing to lose and everything to gain!
Six reasons you need to start using paid social media advertising
If you or your business owner are still on the fence about social media advertising, here are some figures for you. More than two billion people use social media every day. The average person spends 135 minutes per day on social networks. Also, the number of small businesses advertising on Facebook has doubled to 50 million in recent months.So if you aren’t using social media to advertise your products or services, you are at risk of falling behind the competition. Paid social media is quite different from traditional outbound advertising. Big data and machine learning allows you to target, reach and ultimately find your audience with ease. Each platform has been designed to bring results for different aspects of your business, such as branding, lead generation, website traffic, etc.These platforms even give you native analytics for insights into how they recommend increasing the performance of your advertising campaign. Whether you’re looking for reach, engagement, or sales – the case for advertising on social media marketing has never been stronger.Here are seven benefits to using paid social media advertising for your small business:• Magnify your reach• Laser targeting• Branding• Content marketing push• On the fly reach• Crazy market insights 1. Advertising on social media gives your brand instant visibility. Posts from friends and family now receive priority, so organic reach for brands on social media is declining steadily – especially on Facebook. The sheer volume of posts makes connecting with your audience a statistical improbability.Due to Facebook’s change in their algorithms, posts from family and friends now receive priority over brands and pages. We aren’t saying posting on social media is pointless, but if you are expecting big results from it, you need to be able to put money behind it. Paid ads are guaranteed a place in the user’s feed, this is what we mean by “putting money behind it”. Despite the sheer volume of posts and ads being ran on social media platforms, everyone gets to be seen.To reach the most amount of people, you need to find out where your audience spends their time online. Refer to the image below from Sproutsocial.com, this graphic depicts the platforms that each different age group use the most. 2. Laser Targeting If you take anything away from this, its that Paid social media advertising allows you to reach the exact people you want! Each platform offers a ridiculous amount of targeting options. This goes beyond just basic demographics, some targeting options include; interests, hobbies, personality types, and many, many more.Look Alike Audience targeting is one of the most powerful options you can use, it allows you to take a list of people. Let’s say, your customer purchase list. You can upload this file to Facebook and tell it to find people that are most like these people, the people that have already purchased from you. You can create retargeting campaigns by simply installing the Facebook Pixel onto your website. This will track users that have visited, added to cart, purchased etc. It can even track the exact product they looked at, so you can do things like create dynamic product ads that feature the specific products that each individual customers looked at. 3. Branding Social media is one of the most cost effective ways to create exposure and buzz around your brand. If you business is appearing on social platforms regularly, people will start to recognise you. Once you become a familiar name with your audience you will start to increase credibility, drive engagement, and eventually purchasing behaviour.Statistics show that 80% of users follow at least one brand on Instagram, of that at least 30% of users have purchased a product they found on the Instagram platform. So, when you are trying to create awareness, create ads that are both informative and memorable. One of the many companies that has used social media branding to their advantage is Sydney recording studio. 4. Content Marketing Push Social media is an ideal way to distribute your best content.Social media has become the best way to get your best content out there. According to Sprout Social, nearly 75% of users follow a brand because they’re interested in its product or service. Keep your followers engaged with educational content that will transform them into ready to go buyers!Social media based ads will help drive website traffic, boost your social media engagement and, if done correctly, improve your ROI for content marketing. 5. On The Fly Reach The dispersion of social media advertising isunrivaled, it probably doesn’t come as a surprise that 80% of time spent on social media is spent on a mobile device.When people want to know, find, or purchase something, the first thing we do is pull out our phones. Social media advertising campaigns will help you either get that persons attention in that moment, or hopefully, you will already have made an impression on them with a previous campaign and you will be the first business they come to. 6. Crazy Market Insights Facebook analytics platform is insane, you can find out just about every detail you could ever want or need. How did your audience react to your ad? Which platform worked best? Which ad graphic performed best? Did an image or video convert better? You can set up customised on the fly analytics that will give you live reports such as clicks, comments, website visits, conversion, any many, many more.The optimisation you can do with your ads is unparalleled with Facebook insights. Once you know your exact perfect performing audience, nothing can stop your growth. Why Pay for Social Media Advertising? Like we mentioned earlier, organic reach on social platforms is continuing to fall. Paid social advertising is what keeps your pages alive. As a result of this, businesses, small and large are having to change their social media strategies.You may have noticed some of the big fortune 500 companies showing up in your newsfeed this past couple year. The time is NOW if you want to even be able to afford using these platforms. As more and more companies with larger and larger budgets continue
