Your Digital Identity Facebook and Instagram Special Edition – 2016. v3
www.entrepreneur.com July 13, 2016 Article by Greg Hong
3 Big Ways Instagram is Changing Restaurants When you walk into a restaurant, it’s still quite likely that someone might take your order down with a pen and paper. Restaurants have run well without many technological advancements for centuries. But recently, the hospitality industry as a whole has embraced technology in many ways — from the way they accept reservations and manage their waitlists to the way you’re able to pay your bill. Among all the tech advancements affecting dining, social media is causing visible changes to the restaurant experience, especially Instagram, the mobile photo-sharing service that has taken the world by storm in six short years. Prominent restaurants, like Per Se in New York and Fat Duck in the UK, discourage flash photography. Instead, most restaurants ended up embracing the fast-growing Instagram as a new marketing tool and a way to connect with their diners. It makes sense. Millennials dine out more than any previous generation. According to Restaurant Marketing Labs, Millennials spend $174 a month at restaurants, and there are nearly 50 million Millennials on Instagram in the U.S. alone. With the rise in popularity of Instagram, restaurants have adapted to be more tech-friendly by recognizing their new, more photo-obsessed diners in three ways.
1. Decor and design has become more important. Decor and design has become an increasingly important part of the dining experience, as people now pay more attention to elements, like the art on the walls, the way the table surface contrasts with the plate and the lighting. The growing emphasis on design is not just a coincidence. In fact, acclaimed New York restaurateur Michael Chernow noted its importance when designing his photo-friendly seafood spot Seamore’s — a light-filled, beachy eatery with bright pops of color. “Instagram was absolutely, 100 percent taken into account,” he said. Ken Fulk, restaurant interior designer who worked on Sadelle’s, a hot new spot from Major Food Group, echoed these sentiments. “You get inspired by [Instagram], because people have become great at documenting spaces and things... You now have literally millions of people out there posting these beautiful images, and how could you not be inspired by it?” Investing in design is an investment in crowdsourced social media marketing, essential in today’s digitally driven consumer market.
2. Presentation of the food has become more important. The Instagram trend has also led to more creative presentations of food and a greater emphasis on plating. One of the most popular dishes to crop up on the food scene in 2016 — thanks to the viral nature of social media — is the milkshake from Black Tap Craft Burgers and Beer in New York. The milkshakes are outrageously decorated, colorful masterpieces that are a social media match made in heaven. According to Black Tap’s chef Joe Isidori, Instagram has made Black Tap into one of the biggest food trends of this year. Every time we post a new collaboration or milkshake, the photos seem to go viral, and lines at the restaurant continue to build — the momentum never stops.”
3. Branded moments made for social sharing have become more important. We’re also seeing a shift in how restaurants are creating purposeful, Instagrammable moments with special touches designed to entice social sharing. At Dante, a popular Italian restaurant in New York, special cocktails are made with custom ice that’s stamped with the restaurant’s name. This touch is branded, memorable, extremely shareable and effective, with many diners posting photos of their drinks and the cubes to their followers. Similarly, Mission Chinese Food, The Lucky Bee and ZZ’s Clam Bar also purposefully present their drinks in a super stunning and unique way. Think whole coconuts, purple illuminating light bulbs and brass pineapples as glasses. When diners Instagram these drinks, often the photos could even go without an explanation of where they’re from because they’re so iconic. Followers recognize where that item is from. With customers photographing and Instagramming the entire dining experience these days, restaurants have become incredibly thoughtful about more than just their menus. From plating to decor, the entire dining experience is a necessary focus.
How Marketing on Facebook is Changing in 2016 Facebook is constantly evolving and expanding. Now reaching over 1.65 billion monthly active users per month, 1.5 billion of them via mobile device, the equivalent of more than 20,000 users is active on Facebook every second. In recent years, Facebook's been improving the experience it provides to its users so they can access a wider variety of content without ever leaving the site. This infographic from Speechless Digital looks at a few of Facebook's more recent stats and innovations.
www.socialmediatoday.com June 3, 2016 Article by Zachary Jarvis
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Facebook Remains Best Marketing Channel—For Now www.qsrmagazine.com
August 9, 2016
Article by Nicole Duncan
If Pokémon Go has taught marketers anything, it’s that a new platform capable of explosive growth is always around the corner. Photo app Snapchat might not have rocketed onto the scene like the augmented-reality game, but it has found purchase as a scrappy rival to more established social media platforms. In fact, the Internet is littered with news stories, op-eds, and blog posts decreeing the obsolescence of Facebook and the ascension of Snapchat. But not so fast, says John Dick, CEO of CivicScience, which recently conducted a study comparing the two social media companies. The resulting data flies in the face of the anecdotes and assumptions. “Achieving scale is not an easy thing to do … that’s not to say [Facebook] is protected for infinity; we’ve certainly seen what have happened to other so-called kings of the hill like AOL or Yahoo! say 15–20 years ago,” Dick says. “Snapchat or something like Snapchat will continue to appeal to the youngest sector just because it’s not where everyone else is.” But Facebook has hedged its bets by establishing a popular network across age and socioeconomic demographics, Dick adds. When polling consumers younger than 35, Civicscience found that 34 percent of Snapchat users ate at quick serves one or more times a week. This number pales in comparison with the 65 percent of Facebook users who will visit a quick serve once or more each week. Ultimately Facebook is much more difficult to dethrone just because of its sheer size (1.65 billion) compared with Snapchat, which [only recently] passed the 100 million user mark. “Snapchat may grow, and it may outpace Facebook two years from now or even a year from now, but just today the numbers still aren’t there,” Dick says. 4
He adds that such uncertainty can send brands into a tailspin. Many want to be the first to invest in a new, popular platform that will stand the test of time, but as Dick points out, the history of businesses “is riddled with people who jumped on the bandwagon, and the bandwagon crashed,” he says. “Don’t read an article about Facebook losing young people and then shift all of your young marketing away from Facebook to Snapchat—that’s a huge overreaction.” That’s not to say that it’s not worth brands exploring up-and-comers like Snapchat or even brand-new wunderkinds like Pokémon Go— so long as they can afford it. Dick compares it to fishing: Facebook is a large pond with an abundance of fish and Snapchat is a smaller one, also teeming with fish; if brands have the resources, they can fish in both ponds. One thing that marketers can take heart in is the consistency of young consumers in their quick-service spending—if not their social media preferences. Whether it’s a recession or economic boom, the youngest customers (think: high school and college-age students) will frequent and purchase roughly the same amount at foodservice establishments. And since most teens and young adults have limited funds from allowances or part-time jobs, they’re more likely to choose a limitedservice restaurant than a sit-down one, Dick says. “The battleground for social media or any media for young people is going to be a little bit more tilted toward the quick [serve] and fast-casual concepts,” Dick says.
Instagram Hits 500 Million Users, 300 Million Daily Actives www.socialmediatoday.com
June 21, 2016
Article by Andrew Hutchinson
Instagram has been on a massive rise of late. The image sharing network hit 300 million accounts back in December 2014, which, at the time, saw it eclipse Twitter and spark questions as to whether it had already become one of the Big 4 social media platforms (Twitter, at the time, had 284 million monthly active users). Then, nine months later, Instagram announced it had hit 400 million monthly actives, reinforcing the platform's growing popularity.
And as noted, the rollout of these new, business-friendly features has some concerned that the platform will soon be overrun with ads, but the addition of the new algorithm will counter that by ensuring people see more of the content they want. Of course, the algorithm in itself has many worried, but so far the rollout has gone reasonably well (after the initial backlash, which actually came before anything had been changed).
In between then and now, Instagram has ramped up its advertising options and announced a major change to the way its news feed works, changes which many speculated will alter the user experience and slow the app's momentum. Not so, according the latest numbers.
And while the algorithm hasn't been rolled out to everyone as yet, it's worth noting that the announcement of the coming algorithm was made three months ago, while on-platform advertising was opened up to all businesses nine months ago, both within the period of the platform's acquisition of their latest 100 million users. It would appear neither has had any negative impact as yet.
As per the official Instagram blog: "Today, we’re excited to announce our community has grown to more than 500 million Instagrammers — more than 300 million of whom use Instagram every single day. Our community also continues to become even more global, with more than 80 percent living outside of the United States. That's a major jump – and just as the last 100 million new active users came within nine months, it's only taken Instagram another nine to hit this new benchmark, showing that enthusiasm for the app isn't slowing down. In an accompanying interview, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom also noted that the average session time on Instagram per user is 21 minutes.
Expanded Options In an interview with Bloomberg, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom noted that video, in particular, has seen significant growth on the platform in the last six months, with video watch time rising 150%. Instagram recently increased the maximum length of video posts on their platform from 15 seconds to 60 seconds, reflecting that user demand. According to Systrom: "What's crazy for us is that we have this moment in time where Instagram is becoming more and more video dominant, video heavy, and I think that's just a sign of the times, people are taking more video, consuming more video – and frankly, all these influencers that exist on Instagram, […] they're all video heavy as well. I think it's a generational thing."
But what really stands out here is that Instagram now has 300 million daily active users who are sharing more than 95 million photos and videos on the platform every 24 hours.
Given the growing enthusiasm for video, and the expansion of live-streaming, Systrom also addressed a question about whether we might one day see a Live option for Instagram.
Earlier this month, Snapchat touted that it was now reaching 150 million daily actives, underlining that app's own huge expansion. At the time, we speculated that figure would put Snapchat into the top three most popular social media apps in the world, behind Facebook and Instagram - but that was without a current DAU count from Instagram, so we used an estimate:
"You may someday – I mean, obviously Facebook's dipped a toe into it and is going - well it's more than dipping a toe into it, they're going heavy into it – and we have that technology to leverage as well. What's important to us is to figure out how it fits into Instagram because you don’t just want to, like, adopt a technology and say 'great, now we have live', we have to figure out exactly how it works inside of Instagram and how it'll be different to all the other offerings."
• • • • • •
Facebook – 1.09b Daily Active Users (based on FB data) Instagram – 200m Snapchat – 150m Twitter – 136m (based on Bloomberg calculations) LinkedIn – 53m Pinterest – 50m
How that might fit into the Instagram eco-system is another question entirely, but Systrom's response shows that they are looking at everything, they are considering expanded, new ways in which people can use the Instagram platform to better share and communicate.
If you've not considered how Instagram could be used as part of your marketing and outreach efforts, it may be time to re-assess. The app is huge and only growing, and it's still gaining momentum over time.
The fact that live-streaming would even be considered for what was once a very simple photo-sharing app shows just how far Instagram has come. Given these latest user numbers, Instagram is now firmly placed as one of the biggest social media apps in the world – arguably the second biggest. At one stage, the social platforms that were deemed essential were Facebook, Twitter, and to a lesser extent (and for different reasons) Google+. That's now shifted significantly, with the user trends moving more towards images and visual content.
In this week's Facebook stockholder annual meeting, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted that the company follows a playbook for monetization which follows several stages: 1. Build a product that people love 2. Facilitate organic business behavior on the app (free of charge) 3. Prove additional avenues for businesses who are seeking to expand their reach and presence
Now, for any brand, Instagram needs to be part of your consideration, as does Snapchat. That's not to say every brand needs to be on these platforms, but through sheer size and influence, they cannot be ignored, you have to at least investigate and see if your target audience is there. And given the popularity of both Instagram and Snapchat among younger audiences, chances are their importance will only grow over time.
Instagram is effectively in the second stage, where they're now providing new, free tools to help businesses make the most of the platform, with new advertising options and brand profiles, including analytics options, being rolled out.
As noted by Systrom: "Everyone's communicating visually now, and Instagram's a big part of that eco-system." It's worth taking into account as you develop and refine your social media marketing plan.
As you can see, Instagram's actual DAU of 300 million puts it well ahead of Snapchat – double their daily active count, to be exact.
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Instagram for Business — 12 DOs and DONT’s www.socialmediatoday.com
June 17, 2016 Article by Dhariana Lozano
Instagram is an excellent network for branding and visibility. You can share and curate images and videos to visually create an experience for anyone visiting your account. But as with all social media marketing, creating an authentic feed that continuously grows organically comes with its own set of rules for businesses.
* The DOs * 1. Post consistently Social media marketing is a commitment. Post consistently to stay in front of your audience’s eyes and keep growth going. Try starting at three posts a week and go from there.
2. Use the link in your bio to promote specific posts or landing pages Instagram gives you one link space, so use it to your advantage. When you have a new product, blog post, or landing page to promote, pop your link in your bio and create posts with a call to action to click on the link in your biography. If you have an engaged audience this can be a great way to generate a little more traffic.
3. Ask questions for engagement Looking to get more engagement out of your audience? Don’t be scared to ask a few questions. Let your audience weigh in on a new menu offering, or what your next happy hour special should be. You may not get an answer right away - but don’t get discouraged.
4. Engage with others Like and comment on content others are producing. Join in on conversations, follow hashtags, interact and make new friends.
5. Create a signature style/look This one's a little tricky and will evolve over time – but creating and locking in a signature look and feel for your account is great for engagement and attracting eyes to your posts in an ever cluttered feed. Decide how you want your account to come across visually. This means choosing colors, specific filters and giving photos a consistent look. *Food often looks best when it’s unfiltered.
6. Plan Think of your Instagram account as an extension of your brand just as you would carefully plan any other initiative, plan your Instagram posts and images. Carefully choose and edit your pictures, vary composition and test different captions.
7. Use industry relevant hashtags Hashtags are used for searching, which provides you with an opportunity to get in front of new eyes. When choosing hashtags for your next post, think about how people might be searching for your content topic. Also consider how saturated a hashtag may be – targeting is the name of the game. Instagram allows for 30 hashtags – use them strategically for growth.
8. Share behind the scenes content Snap some photos of your desk, take us behind the scenes at your awards ceremony, let your audience in on content they wouldn’t otherwise receive. This gives people another reason to follow your Instagram account.
9. Analyze your account Stay on top of your Instagram analytics. Keep track of followers, likes per photo, number of comments and more with a few tools. Instagram announced that soon we’ll have built in analytics, but until then, I’ve been using Squarelovin and Websta.me (which just got a revamp).
* The DONT’s * 10. Don’t over post Just like any other network, you don’t want to annoy your audience with too many posts. Keep it to 1-3 posts a day (for most businesses) unless your audience reacts better to higher number of posts.
11. Don’t use auto-commenters, or follow bots Generic auto comments are annoying, and getting followed over and over by the same person is just as irritating. You’re not fooling anyone – social media users are savvy to these interactions. You risk looking spammy, therefore deterring anyone from following you.
12. Don’t post irrelevant content for the sake of engagement Keep your posts brand-centric, or closely related to interests of your target audience (and followers). Context is everything, so even if you're going for more of an engaging post to boost attention, remember to tie it back to your brand purpose.
Bonus Instagram Tips: Create a test account This may sound a bit outlandish, but creating a dummy account to test photos on is great for planning and checking if your new photo matches the aesthetic of the photos you already have in your account.
iPhone Text Replacement for Your Hashtags This is a fun one I just recently discovered. With the algorithm in place, getting the right hashtags on your posts is crucial. To help keep track of the hashtags you use more often, and save time when entering them, you can use the text replacement tools on your iPhone to store hashtags. I've broken mine out into different categories, but I'm in the process of picking my 30 targeted Instagram hashtags. Here's how to do it: Go to Settings> General> Keyboard> Text Replacement then click on the plus (+) on the upper right to enter your own replacements. Enter your hashtags under “phrase” and your shortcut phrase under “shortcut.”
Instagram puts Snapchat on notice with 'Stories' www.mashable.com
August 2, 2016
Article by Karissa Bell
The war between Facebook and Snapchat just got real. The Facebookowned photos app just introduced a new feature called Instagram Stories and it's a lot like Snapchat's feature of the same name. Instagram Stories, which is beginning to roll out to users now, allow users to create ephemeral "slideshows" separate from their main feed, which disappear after 24 hours. Like Snapchat, you can annotate your images with doodles, text and emoji and keep tabs on who is viewing your Story. Stories live in a bar at the top of your home feed. Like the photos and videos that appear in your feed, Stories are algorithmically ranked, though not by the same algorithm that determines the order of your feed. Instead, they are ranked based on relationship — people you are closer to should, in theory, be closer to the front of the queue. Navigating the Stories themselves, though, is slightly different than Snapchat. Tapping right will advance you to the next image or video in a story while tapping left will take you to the previous one and swiping left will skip to the next Story in your feed. As with Snapchat, you can check who is looking at your Story. The default settings allow anyone who follows you to be able to see your Story, but you can opt to hide Stories from specific users. Additionally, if you have a public account, anyone who views your profile will be able to view your current Story by tapping on your profile image. One interesting difference between Snapchat and Instagram's version of the features is that Instagram only allows you to share photos you've previously taken if they were shot within the last 24 hours. Snapchat added the ability to share old photos via a new feature called Memories in a recent update, though users can see if a photo was shot outside of the app.
Minor differences notwithstanding, it's difficult to ignore just how similar Instagram's Stories are to Snapchat's. Instagram's official line on the similarities between the two apps, by the way, is that Stories are simply "a new format" that they have chosen to adopt. "Stories are a new format that's just starting to see broad adoption, and we're excited to bring them to Instagram and help evolve them," an Instagram spokesperson said in a statement to Mashable. "Over the years we’ve been really successful at bringing new formats to Instagram like video, messaging with Direct, and Boomerang." Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg weighed in on the Instagram update Tuesday. "This is the latest step in putting video at the center of all our services," he wrote in a Facebook post. "People are already creating and sharing more video, so we're going to make it even easier." Facebook, of course, has tried many times (unsuccessfully) to emulate Snapchat in some way — both through new standalone apps and through features within its own apps. Instagram appears to be hoping Stories will increase engagement and motivate users to post more often. In a blog post Tuesday, the company notes that though not every moment may be worthy of your main feed, they may still have a place on Instagram. "Instagram has always been a place to share the moments you want to remember. Now you can share your highlights and everything in between, too." Whether users will like the feature, though, is another matter. Both the introduction of the algorithmic feed and the app's recent redesign sparked almost immediate protests from users.
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7 Ways to Increase Your Facebook Reach
www.socialmediatoday.com article by Michael Wood
June 17, 2016
Organic reach on Facebook has been declining over time for many Pages, so the News Feed algorithm may not be enough to help you reach new customers. Studies have shown that even the largest brands in the world are only reaching a fraction of their Facebook fans via organic reach exclusively. Because of this, social media marketers need to think outside the box and get creative with their tactics to maximize their Facebook reach. Here are seven methods that will help increase your Facebook reach without breaking the bank.
1. Ask Your Fans to Receive Notifications
5. Become a Content Connoisseur
Facebook filters your news feed by giving you the content that you interact with most, but you can override that by turning on notifications for all posts from certain Pages or individuals. Getting your fans to select the option to ‘Receive Notifications’ on the top-right of your brand Page is one way to boost your reach - though there is a risk to this practice. If your fans do switch on notifications, then they get too many updates from you and opt to switch them off again, that can count as a negative signal, which may reduce your reach overall. For this reason, ensure you monitor your posting schedule and audience response to help guide you on what your audience wants to see from your Page.
Everything goes back to creating great content. If you have great content on your Page, you are going to keep people coming back for more. They'll search for you manually because they're eager to find out more about what you have to offer.
2. Embed Your Posts Elsewhere A big part of your strategy is to encourage interaction outside of Facebook. This can come in the form of sharing your content on other social media networks and embedding your posts on your blog. By posting your Facebook content elsewhere, you can boost exposure and engagement, which will also have flow-on benefits to your subsequent updates.
3. Commenting Creates Eyeballs Studies have shown that people are more likely to interact with a post that other people have already interacted with. A post with lots of comments is going to encourage further commenting because it encourages discussion and debate. More engagement on your content is a positive signal to the News Feed algorithm, making it more likely that your content will appear in more people's feeds.
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Curate great content and make sure what you are posting is relevant to your audience’s current interests. Monitor your Page Insights to measure audience response to each post, then double-down on your successes.
6. Boost a Post And then, of course, there are paid options. The easiest way to increase the reach of your updates is to boost your posts. You can do this through selecting the button underneath every status and deciding how much you want to spend on reaching more people. Boosting can have mixed results, but it remains a useful tool to have at your disposal.
7. Use Facebook Advertising This is the ultimate way to increase your reach using paid methods. Using the power of the Facebook Power Editor, you can create an ad and allocate a budget of your choosing. Facebook will spend this budget over a certain period of time. Select your target audience and begin cycling through images. It sounds easy, but the testing can be difficult. And even when you are paying for reach, the only way to do it successfully is by understanding your target audience. Make an extra effort to grasp what they want to see from you.
4. Mixing Content
Conclusion – Testing, Testing, and Testing
There was a time when every Facebook status update contained an image because images took up more space, making your post more prominent in people's feeds. But that advice is no longer relevant — ordinary link images now appear in the same size as manually attached images. As such, you need to take more note of the image content, specifically and ensure it's optimized for Facebook and that it looks appealing within the News Feed.
To achieve anything on social media, you have to constantly test your content. The rules are changing all the time and you have to be prepared for anything. Do you know what the big brands do that smaller brands don’t? They're running split tests, even during the good times. The biggest mistake a company can make is to only experiment when they need an increase in income. Lucrative times should mean more testing, not less.
Facebook Announces New Options for Live www.socialmediatoday.com
July 20, 2016
Article by Andrew Hutchinson
In addition to making deals with high-profile creators from other social platforms and signing up TV shows to have them stream direct onto their platform, Facebook’s continuing to develop its core live-streaming product, announcing three new features today to help boost adoption of the service.
GOING SIDEWAYS The first update will enable streamers to go live in full-screen mode, maximizing screen real-estate and providing a slightly bigger canvas for creators to work with. (see image above) Facebook first introduced the capacity to record in landscape back in January but your video still appeared in square aspect ratio regardless of whether you held the phone horizontally or vertically. This update enables users to see your video on the full horizontal screen, making it a more immersive experience. Periscope added similar functionality last September. The new option will be made available to broadcasters via iOS straight away, while Android users will get access to full screen mode later this Summer.
GOING LONG
GOING SILENT And the third, and final, update – though possibly the most significant – is the ability for both viewers and broadcasters to hide reactions and comments on videos. While being able to interact with broadcasters is a fundamental element of the live-streaming process, there have been complaints and concerns raised about the presence of reaction emoji on screen during more serious streams (like the recent Dallas police shootings), while trolls can also quickly ruin the live experience, as many streamers – particularly female users – have found. And although this doesn’t solve the problem of harassment, it does provide a way for broadcasters to switch it off to avoid any such distraction, while also making it easier for both viewers and broadcasters to focus on the content, as opposed to having their eyes dart back and forth between the comments and the stream. You'll be able to hide the comments and reactions on a Live video by swiping right, and bring them back by dragging from the left. Facebook's betting big on Live and on its capacity to become a much bigger part of the wider Facebook experience. Individually, these updates are relatively small, but they all add to the bigger Live scope, improving the user experience as Facebook works to boost its appeal and adoption.
Facebook’s also announced that publishers can now stream for up to four hours per session – more than double the previous limit of 90 minutes. This comes in addition to an update to the Facebook Graph API last week that will enable those utilizing the API to broadcast for an unlimited time. Use cases for such a feature include zoos and museums who want to provide live access to events and exhibits. That feature, though, is more aimed at professional broadcasters and set-ups — for everyday users, increasing the limit to four hours will give them more time to hold discussions and interact with their audiences via streams. Facebook says they’ve made this update in response to requests from both users and publishers, so clearly those who are using and watching Live content are pretty engaged with what they’re seeing. 9
7 Reasons Your Facebook Strategy Isn’t Working
www.qsrmagazine.com June 29, 2016 Article by Kristin Hulse Most of us have been guilty of at least one of these Facebook pitfalls at some stage. And while they won’t necessarily make or break your business, making improvements in these key areas can boost overall Facebook Page engagement, maintain loyal customers and position your small business for success with potential customers.
1. You only talk about yourself Have you ever had a friend who can’t stop talking about himself? (You know… that friend.) It’s a major turn off to hang out with someone who's entirely self-absorbed and doesn’t listen to you. The same goes for Facebook. While it may be tempting to push as many promotional messages as possible (since it looks like a form of free advertising), doing so can come with a huge drawback: decreased engagement.
4. You don’t share useful updates about your business Most people follow business Pages to show their support for a business (great for local businesses like yours), to get first notice of sales and promotions, to say something about their tastes and interests to other Facebook users and to stay up-to-date on important information such as business hours, products, services and employee activity. You’re missing out on a way to connect with your followers if you don’t share updates on Facebook about changes to your hours for holidays or about that new employee who's just joined your team.
5. You expect immediate results and give up when you don't see any
The more your social content engages your ideal customers, the more likely it is that they'll move further along the sales cycle to produce a return. Also, Facebook will make sure your followers don't see your posts if too many of them are overly promotional.
Success on social media is like search engine optimization — it takes time to build and effort to maintain. You won’t see quick results by investing in this type of marketing, but you will grow a solid audience and provide a valuable form of customer service in an era where customer service is the dividing line between successful and failing businesses.
2. You don’t diversify social content on your Page
6. You have duplicate or unmanaged Facebook Pages
While we all love a great photo or meme, a business's Facebook Page needs to have more than that to keep up meaningful engagement. Pages that only share photos provide no reason for a follower to convert. They also don’t take advantage of sharing content that can move prospects further into the sales cycle toward a conversion.
Unclaimed or duplicate Facebook Pages are downright confusing. People who search for your business won't have a clear idea of which one has accurate information, making it more likely that they'll move on to a competitor.
Try sharing articles or information that's interesting or useful to your potential customers, as well as relevant to your business.
The easier you make it to find your business, and/or information related to your business, the more likely it is that prospective clients or customers will come to you.
You’ll likely find that people will respond more positively when there's a healthy mix of content that meets their needs in addition to the content that's directly promotional.
Fix this issue by claiming unmanaged pages and merging them with your existing page or merging duplicates.
7. You don’t share content geared toward your ideal customer 3. You don’t reply to messages Followers and consumers expect to be able to contact you through your Facebook Page. Even if you don’t answer messages right away, make a point of treating Facebook messages like email inquiries and seek to get back to people within 1-2 business days. It’s not just good social media manners; it’s good customer service. 10
I like talking to people who share my interests - like the latest indie rock album or the latest episode of House of Cards. I’m also better at working with people with whom I’ve had great conversations. Why? Mutual respect and trust. It takes time to build those relationships, but once you do, it’s a lot easier to work together. Sharing content geared toward your ideal customer is like building a relationship based on mutual interests. Over time, the practice builds trust, keeps you top of mind, and creates a key point of difference between you and your competition.
The Latest Updates to Instagram and What They Mean for Businesses
www.socialmediatoday.com June 8, 2016 Article by Travis Huff
Instagram has released a range of updates recently, tweaking their image and adding to their business tools.
New Logo
Targeting Tools
While the verdict is still out on the new logo, it was redesigned to show how the app has evolved. The new Facebook owners wanted a simpler and sleek logo for the app. They kept the camera in the logo because pictures are still the center of attention.
These tools enable you to narrow down or broaden who your ads are targeting. Keep in mind that you need to know how much you want to pay per potential lead. This will help you decide whether you need to narrow or broaden your targeting.
New Color Scheme Along with the new logo, a new color scheme was in order. The interface is still the same but they created a black and white background to give your eyes a place to rest and put more focus on the images.
Ways that you should be able to target your audience on Instagram would be by area, time of day, or days of the week. If you're unsure of how your audience reacts to your posts, look at your analytics and design the best marketing plan from that.
Contact Button Click-to-call buttons have about a 70% rate of use on other platforms. Besides the increased chances of a potential customer utilizing the button, studies have also found and having such a button can lead to a 200% increase in conversion. Instagram has created a prominent click-to-call button for business profiles. Our suggestion, take advantage of this golden ticket.
Promoted Posts Instagram decided to create ad space that will resemble how Facebook set up their ads. You can turn your posts into ads (in other words, promoted posts). This allows you to gain more views and boost potential engagements on your profile
Analytics Not only can you promote your business’s posts, you can also now track how well they're doing with Instagram's updated analytics. Brand profiles will now have their own analytic tools which will enable you to keep track of who's looking at your posts and ways to target your customers via demographic data. And the most exciting part? It's totally free.
Additional Contact Information On Profile Page Besides a contact button, you can add your email address, or a text message number to your profile, and directions to your place of business. This is great news because your customers can contact you in the fashion that's most convenient to them. While some users will be excited for the sleek, smart, stripped back presentation format, most of the enthusiasm around these updates is coming from the business community. Instagram's marketing capabilities are taking off. If you aren’t including Instagram in your marketing strategy, it’s time to consider it for your business.
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6 Ways To Shine on Instagram
www.restaurant-hospitality.com April 14, 2016 Article by Liz Barrett
With five hundred million monthly active users and ninety-five million posts per day, you need more than a pretty picture to get noticed on Instagram. We asked those who have figured it out to show us how it’s done. Joanna Huang is the digital marketing manager for Off the Grid (@offthegrid), a network of food trucks and street food vendors in San Francisco, which boasts nearly 32,000 Instagram followers. “A perfect Instagram post is one that embodies an experience,” she says, “whether it's a close up of a food item that shows the many ingredients that go into the dish or a ‘food in the air’ photo that captures the food and the sense of atmosphere a viewer can expect.”
1. Put your best photo forward “Your photos will do best if you find the right lighting and use no filter,” adds Huang. “No-filter photos possess a certain authenticity, since it's the object in raw form with no simulated effects hiding anything.”
2. Don’t neglect the story Focus on photos, but don't forget about the quality of your copy. The best Instagram posts, according to Gavin Kaysen, chef and owner of Spoon and Stable in Minneapolis, include good lighting and good stories. Kaysen runs his own personal Instagram (@gavinkaysen), which has nearly 24,000 followers, and he delegates the Spoon and Stable account (@spoonandstable), which has just over 17,000 followers. “I grow my page by sharing my daily life through food and the dishes we create at Spoon and Stable,” he says. “We like to give an insider's look into menu items we're developing, events that are held at the restaurant and even the chefs and staff behind the magic,” says Callan Polmer, director of events and marketing at Faith & Flower (@faithandflower) in Los Angeles, which has just over 8,000 followers on Instagram. “Asking a question in the post always gets a lot of tags and reposts.”
3. Decide on a goal What message do you want visitors to receive from your Instagram page? Do you want to be the fun restaurant? The sophisticated bar? Having a branding goal will help determine what your posts should look like. “We have posts that are either entertaining or enticing,” says Teddy Heidt, brand communications specialist at Chicago-based Protein Bar (@theproteinbar), with 10,000-plus Instagram followers. “We switch between posts that are funny and entertaining, such as memes, and enticing posts that show really sexy food-porn style shots of our food.”
4. Track and engage “We continually inspire engagement by tracking what our customers respond to,” says Huang. “Our Instagram followers have an extreme sweet tooth, so desserts always generate a lot of reactions. We hold contests, giving away cool things. Throughout the week, we make sure to check out all the photos with our events' geotags and engage with our customers. While staying on-brand, we also try to engage in trending topics, especially when they’re Bay Area-focused.” Polmer reminds fellow restaurateurs to interact with your clients and friends, “They are, after all, the fabric of your operation, and your absolute best source of advertisement,” she says. “It's important to encourage a genuine correspondence. Guests are thrilled when we repost their images and respond to their requests.” “Quality images and thought-provoking content will encourage people to engage,” says Heidt. “Have a well-thought-out plan, whether that means you post twice a week or every day, it’s figuring out what works best for you. At the same time, understand that some content will really make a splash while other posts will just keep you top of mind. It’s all about the balance and knowing your audience.”
5. Follow back Terry Heller, owner of L.A.’s Plan Check Kitchen + Bar (@PlanCheck), has an Instagram following of 16,400, thanks in part to previous partnerships and collaborations. “We’ve gotten to know our guests really well over the last four years,” says Heller. “Have fun engaging with your followers and commenters. It helps to follow frequent commentators and like their photos in order to establish a fluid rapport.”
6. Use hashtags “The hashtag is your friend,” says Heidt. “When we first started building our Instagram, hashtags were very important in terms of getting our message out there. Then as you build your audience, you can take some hashtags out and use them to target more specific audiences. There are so many more people you can reach simply by following what the buzz hashtag is that day or week.” Huang agrees, adding, “Use the Instagram search tool to find how popular a hashtag is to make sure you're not the only one using it.”