brand awareness | Social Media & The Small Business

Social Media & Personal PR: Instagram

Hello, hello all! I’m still talking about personal PR for your brand through social media, and my last three posts dealt with Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Today’s post is going to talk about Instagram, which is still a relatively new social media platform that many businesses are still trying to figure out how to optimize for themselves and their customers.

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Just like Twitter and somewhat like Pinterest, Instagram is a fun and easy way for people to interact with your business. It’s also an easy way to keep people interested in what’s going on with your business. Still fairly new, Instagram has 150+ million users with 55 + million pictures being uploaded per day (Constant Contact). That’s a lot of pictures and a lot of potential for someone to be seen. So, how can a small business use this for its advantage? Below I’ll provide a few tips and ideas to help a small business utilize Instagram for further awareness and interaction.

Tip 1: Add Your Personal Touch

This is your chance to show off your personality and/or the personality of your business. Many people only interact with a business in a transaction sense: I need to purchase something from you, so you sell me that something. One aspect of small businesses that I think is really cool is the opportunity to know where exactly your products/services are coming from. What I mean is a lot of small business owners make it a point to be seen by their customers and to let them know that they appreciate said customers supporting their business. This is nice because usually small business owners put a lot of time and money into their business, and, of course, nothing can replace that basic need for human interaction. Instagram can help you take this a bit further. People are interested about the brands they interact with. They like to see daily happenings and the inner-workings of a company and its culture. Use Instagram to show your business’ culture off. Personal touches leave lasting impressions on people. So how can you do this? Anyway you can think of! Post a picture of you playing a prank on your team; post a picture of you and your team in a meeting discussing the future of your business; post a picture of a fun new way to interact with your products/services. Anything you can think of that accurately portrays your business culture and values will keep the attention of your audience, and help them feel as if they know you on a more personal basis.

Tip 2: Network & Reach New Demographics

Given the sheer number of people and pictures on Instagram, you’re bound to find some who have no idea about your business/brand. This is a good thing! You’ll be able to reach a whole new audience in addition to keeping your current one interested. Also, Instagram is still a social network that goes beyond pictures. Use it to its fullest extent. Don’t be afraid to comment on other people’s content, tagging followers, following new people so you’re on their radar, etc. The key word is NETWORK. So get to some networking and help Instagram work for you.

Tip 3: Use Hashtags

People stumble upon other people’s accounts through the searching of hashtags. However, no one likes clutter? What am I referring to? If you have an Instagram, personal or otherwise, you’ve seen people who take a picture of somethings and use 20+ hashtags to describe it. Don’t. Be. This. Person. It’s annoying and honestly, it comes across as a bit unprofessional. People will pass you over, or not respect you because they’ll think you’re just hashtagging for more follows and likes. Let your pictures, content, and interactions speak for themselves. Uee a few hashtags (I personally think more than 5 is too much) that speak about the important parts of your picture/brand, and let people find you.

A Few More Tips:

make sure to link your Instagram to your personal website and on your other social media platforms
post pictures with a plan in mind – it’s ok to post the odd random photo, but mainly, let your photos serve your business and your interests; you don’t want them to be a visual reflection of incoherent/ADD tangents that have nothing to do with you promoting your image
in addition to hashtags, use mentions to gain attention; this is simply by tagging a follower or someone you want to follow you in a comment or photo
get people to interact with you! offer instagram-only contests

That’s all for now, everyone! Stay tuned for Youtube, Vine, and Snapchat as I close out this series. Here are a few articles if you’d like further reading:

http://blogs.constantcontact.com/fresh-insights/instagram-for-your-business-2/
http://www.webpronews.com/5-ways-to-make-your-small-business-shine-on-instagram-2014-01
http://www.nfib.com/article/how-3-small-businesses-use-instagram-for-marketing-60237/

Until then!

Social Media & Personal PR: Twitter

Hello again, friends! I’m continuing with my series about social media and doing personal PR for your business, and my first two posts talked about Facebook and Pinterest. Today, I’m going to talk to you about Twitter, perhaps one of the most utilized social media platforms by businesses and brands.

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Many brands and businesses are on Twitter to promote their image, engage customers and interact with them, and perhaps to the delight of many, to deal with customer service issues and complaints. Obviously the bigger brand names and companies have quite the Twitter following and presence, so you’re probably wondering how a small business can utilize Twitter in a similar manner. Glad you asked, glad I have an answer.

In my opinion, if nothing else (there should be something else, though), businesses should use Twitter as their social media platform. the number one reason should be enough to hook a business owner: it’s FREE (that’s always a magic word). It’s also an easy way to reach your customers, engage them, and get your business name out there through word of mouth (or Favorites and Retweets, since we’re talking about Twitter). An article on Register.com gives 5 tips on how small businesses can use Twitter for growth. It points out how Dell made an additional $7 billion in sales just through customer interaction on Twitter, and how Best Buy’s Twelpforce has helped over 20,000 people with customer service issues on Twitter. If that doesn’t convince you, it offers a list of 137 reasons why you should be on Twitter. Since that is a lot, I’m just going to summarize it’s 5 tips for you:

Make a complete profile – include your brand’s logo, any pertinent information, and a way to contact you, as well as a link to your main website.
Watch/listen & learn – instead of posting a lot of content up front, follow people in your field/industry who have a lot of followers. Pay attention to how they interact with customers and vice versa, and the type of content that is Tweeted out or shared. Once you realize, use similar tactics to reach your audience.
Care & share – retweet, favorite, and comment on interesting posts from people you follow or from people who follow you; search your company name and look for people who have tweeted problems about it, and help them solve it. Show them you’re a brand that hears them and wants to give them content back in return for them engaging you.
Grab attention – whether this be through contests, through interaction, through Twitter-only offers, etc., just make sure you get and keep the attention of your audience
Promote yourself – paste your handle wherever else you can…on your storefront, on your business website, on your Facebook page, etc. Just make sure it is seen and that people have the opportunity to visit your Twitter profile.

Well, that’s all I have for you today! Here are some more articles if you’d like to do further reading:

http://mashable.com/2012/06/23/twitter-tips-small-business/
https://business.twitter.com/twitter-smaller-businesses
https://business.twitter.com/smallbiz
https://business.twitter.com/success-stories/company-size/smaller-biz

Look out for my next posts, coming soon!

Social Media & Personal PR: Facebook

Hello again, friends! Last post, I finished up my series on different tools small businesses should consider using to reach new clients and different ideas for optimizing customer-brand interaction experience. Now, I am starting a shorter series on the specific social media that people interact with the most, and how brands/small businesses can go about conducting their own PR online through the various media. To start off, trusty old Facebook!

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Facebook took the world by storm when access was granted to those beyond the undergraduate realm. With 900 million active users per month, Facebook certainly is a force to be reckoned with (TheGlobeandTheMail.com). So why should your business have Facebook page? Well if the potential for the sheer numbers of people that can interact with your brand isn’t enough to convince you, then hopefully the rest of my discussion will.

Here are some statistics that Facebook’s own research produced:

1.19 billion users globally
4.5 billion daily generated likes
728 million people log in daily
4.75 billion pieces of content shared daily
16 million local business pages created as of May 2013 (this is a 100% increase from June 2012)

I feel these statistics accurately show that at the very least, every small business should have a presence on Facebook. Now, it’s no lie that it is hard for brands to engage customers through Facebook. Most brands, even big ones, achieve about a 1% interaction rate between the brand and the customers it attracts on Facebook (Econsultancy.com). While this may dishearten you, consider this: these are still results! Results = exposure which in turn = awareness. The interaction, however little, also legitimizes your brand/business’ social media presence. This allows for people who casually check out your page to visit your website or even your other social media platforms you may have linked to your page (which you should have linked to your page, rather). Consider this 1% interaction rate as a starting point on which you can build upon. If you choose to focus your social media ventures on Facebook, then there are ways to increase the chances that you get more of an interaction from your followers.

Some tips to increase interaction with your brand/business:

profile picture should be a recognizable picture of your brand logo
have a direct link for your website
include contact information
invite your friends to like your page
CONTENT IS KING! – as I’ve mentioned before, post often, post what is relevant, and make sure your content is smart and good so it gets/keeps people’s interest and adds to the likelihood that your content is shared and passed around
post at the right times (e.g. if something happening in culture currently relates to your business)
know who you’re posting for
advertise your Facebook page in your store, on your business website, in your Tweets, and across whatever other social media sites you use
engage your followers – through content, through promotions, by commenting back, etc.
go to friends of your followers
consider using Facebook ads

Through these tips, you’ll increase the chances of promoting your brand and increasing engagement with your brand. Don’t shy away from Facebook just because the ROI seems low. Simply consider using it along side one or a few other social media platforms (e.g. Twitter, Pinterest, Vine, etc.).

Ok, that’s all I have for today! Look out for my next blog post about Pinterest, easily one of my favorite social networking sites.

Until next time, y’all!

A list of articles I used for this post that you can read into further:

https://econsultancy.com/blog/63912-how-small-businesses-can-make-the-most-of-facebook#i.kqjas8hlcfro11
http://smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com/marketing-sales/2013/11/14/6-steps-to-promoting-your-small-business-on-facebook/
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/facebook-marketing-for-small-business/