5 Tips For Higher Engagement With Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories Tips

Instagram Stories should be a part of your social media marketing strategy. Stories and Reels have both become very popular elements of the app. The Stories feature of Instagram occupies that key, top of the feed real estate. It can be a great way to connect and engage with your audience.

Many brands and users are just re-posting their regular feed posts to Stories, which Instagram says users don’t particularly like. They state, “We’ve seen from research that people prefer to see original photos and videos in Stories from the people they care about.” So what are you doing to utilize Stories and to increase your engagement on Instagram? Here are five tips you can begin to incorporate.

Show Up in Real Time

A good social media strategy will include a lot pre-determined content. The Stories features gives you the opportunity to connect with your audience in the moment. Be authentic. Share photos and videos of your day. Highlight some of the things that are going on behind the scenes of your company. You can also utilize stories to share your story, how you got started, who you enjoy working with, why you do what you do, etc.

Utilize The Full Screen

Regular Instagram posts in the feed show up on just a fraction of the screen. Even when you share a regular post to your Story, it takes up only a part of the screen. On organic IG Stories, the media takes up the whole screen. Why not use all that real estate to highlight your product or service? Zoom in on the details and let customers know what you’re working on! You can create tutorials and become a leader in your industry.

Use Stories Features

Incorporating Stickers and text over your photo or video in Stories has a higher probability of a user engaging with the piece of content. Add text to encourage users to take action, like a promotion or sale. Stickers, like Poll, Survey and Questions, allow you to instigate engagement from your audience, while other Stickers like Music, allow you to overlay your Story to a track that fits your messaging.

Expand Your Reach

Checking in with the location feature and utilizing hashtags in your Stories will help expand your reach to users who may not be following your account. Did you know that when you add your location to your regular Instagram posts, it improves performance? You might very well experience the same thing when you add a location to your IG Stories. 

Save to Highlights

Instagram Stories stay up for just 24 hours. The only way to avoid this is to save them to your Highlights.  When you do this, the Story will stay there until you decide to take it down, if you ever do. You have the opportunity to highlight your Stories by topic or category. You can create branded covers for those Highlights, whether it’s your company’s colors or titles for each Highlight.

As Stories continues to grow it’s presence on the Instagram platform, creating a strategy will allow your brand to reach and engage with potential customers who go to Stories first before scrolling their feed. With the algorithm always changing, having content at the top of the feed in Stories will help your brand stay in the forefront. Contact us today if you have questions on how you can use Instagram Stories to grow your business.

Signs Your Social Media Needs An Overhaul

Social Media Overhaul

Your social media marketing and overall digital strategy is an investment of time, money, and effort, so we understand when businesses are disappointed when they don’t get the results they were looking for. It sometimes can be difficult to figure out what’s gone wrong or to even realize that your what part of your strategy, if not all of it, is letting you down.

If you’re wondering if something is going wrong with your social media pages, here are some of the six signs that your social media strategy needs an overhaul.

Your Return On Investment Isn’t Good

It’s always good to see some tangible results for your social media campaigns, but are your marketing efforts achieving the best possible ROI? What KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) do you have? What is the ultimate goal? To know if you are getting your ROI, you first need to know what your investment is: time or money. Not every business is looking to sell products on social media, but building brand recognition,

Social media isn’t something you can do once and hope that it will yield the results you’re after a short period of time. To be successful on social media requires time and effort. One of the biggest mistakes a business can make is just posting content for the sake of posting and not contemplating how it adds value to its audiences. When you are posting just to post, you can expect lower reach engagement on your posts. With all platforms having their own version of analytics, you should be evaluating what content resonates best with your audience. If engagement is low, this is an indicator that you need to switch up your approach. Whether you decide to do it yourself or outsource this task to social media marketing professionals, a revamp is one worth investing in.

Seeing little to no traffic is a huge red flag. If you’re seeing poor results, this indicates that your social media efforts are not actually driving any traffic to your website or converting into sales. If your business is receiving traffic, but your conversions are limited or non-existent, this can also be another indicator that either your campaigns or your content need an adjustment. Calls-to-actions are a possible factor that might need adjusting if you’re not seeing conversions. Strategic placement of your CTAs are vital to achieving success.

Everything Is Done Last Minute

Sometimes businesses have to throw campaigns together at the last minute, and that is ok. But if this is a regular occurrence and your main source of developing content and advertising campaigns, this could be hindering your page performance. It takes time to create competitive and effective social media strategies. Also, in order to have a cohesive approach to your digital strategy, it’s important you plan ahead, knowing what you’ll promote, what topics you will cover and how you’ll get the right messages out through your content. Content marketing calendars help businesses plan ahead and stay ahead when it comes to content and campaign development.

You’re Don’t Know What Your Data Is Telling You

Unfortunately, it’s not enough to run a campaign and have a vague idea of what you’d like to achieve in terms of results.; knowing for certain what indicates success to your campaign is important. In order to know if your social media campaigns are successful, you need to analyze the data. Important data points can be measuring comments, conversions, or content reach – it all depends on your goals. What pieces of content are working to reach your goal? Which ones garnish little to no traction? Looking at your data shouldn’t happen just once, it’s an ongoing process. If you’re unsure of how you should approach analyzing your platforms, this may be another indicator your entire social media marketing strategy needs a revamp.

Your Marketing Strategy Is Not Multi-Channel

It’s important to consider the fact that your audience may not exist solely on one social media channel alone. A disjointed marketing strategy can also come across as an inconsistent brand image which also won’t work in your favor. If you want to maximize your chances of reaching as many potential customers as possible, diversifying your social media channel choices within your strategy is the most effective way to ensure you’re doing this. Where are your customers spending their time? Is it Facebook? Instagram? LinkedIn? All of the above? If your service or product attracts a wider array of demographics, one channel simply won’t reach them all. When you are on multiple channels, it’s important to not share the exact same content on all the platforms. How a customer engages with content on Facebook may be different than how they engage with content on LinkedIn, Twitter, or any other platform they may be on. Each platform is its own channel to communicate to your audience, so each platform should have its own content strategy.

You’re Not Fully Committed

A successful social media strategy needs dedication and regular attention. It’s not something that you can play around with within your free time and ignore when you’re busy with other projects. Instead, it requires ongoing care and attention if you want it to flourish. The frequency of your content distribution depends on your audience and your message. You don’t want to annoy people by clogging up their news feed with a post every hour, but if you only post once or twice a month, then you run the risk of being forgotten. If you find that your social media marketing keeps falling to the wayside, then it’s time to look at getting some help.

Overall, there are many signs your social media marketing strategy needs an overhaul and many reasons that your current strategy isn’t serving your business. If your business hasn’t seen any traction in your social media marketing efforts in two to three months, contact us today. A social media audit is a great way to see where your current standings are and where you may need to go.

TikTok Tips for Businesses

TikTok for Business

TikTok, while still in an infancy stage, is a social media platform that is both new and refreshing for many media consumers. It can be an extremely useful tool for marketers to be able to capture an audience that they may not otherwise be able to reach in normal means.

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How Your Business Can Use Clubhouse

Clubhouse marketing

Launched in March 2020, Clubhouse allows users to launch or drop in on “Rooms”, audio-only chat rooms with friends, followers, or the general public. Initially, Clubhouse was created and marketed to top-tier influencers, celebrities, Silicon Valley investors, and industry thought leaders. At the end of 2020, they opened the platform to more general audiences. Users can join and converse in Rooms related to their interests, hobbies, causes, or industries.

Clubhouse can help brands build trust and community. Brands that use Clubhouse could earn credibility by discussing topics they’re experts on. But, they could also earn trust because they’ve made themselves available to listen and talk candidly with their audiences. Here are some tips to get your business started on the emerging platform.

Optimize Your Clubhouse Bio

Your Clubhouse bio is where you can tell everyone what you want to be known for. What you include in your bio will determine how people find you via searches in the member directory or the club directory, and the type of followers you attract.

Collaborate With Others

A great way to get started with the platform is partnering with others. When your partners come on stage, their followers get a notification and are likely to jump into the room and follow you as well. It’s a great way to grow your following on the platform.

Set Up Mini-Events

On Clubhouse, you can host mini-events with experts or professionals in your industry. With a moderator in place, you can invite multiple people to speak based on what the event is about. It’s a great opportunity to engage others to speak, share the event to their followers, and build the audience to your mini-event. Make these events work by promoting them on other social media channels and just like any event, give your audience an outline of how the event will go, who will be speaking, and what they can expect.

Treat Clubhouse as Your Podcast

Have you been wanting to get into podcasting, but not sure how? You can host Rooms with one or two speakers highlighting specific themes, trends, or industry news just like a podcast episode. It’s a great opportunity to have some live engagement during your podcasting, allowing users to ask questions and participate in the podcast as it happens.

Get Feedback

You can use Clubhouse to get valuable feedback on your business or products. If you’re considering launching a new product or service, you can pitch it to a Room with colleagues, industry experts, and even your customers. It’s an opportunity to have others weigh in on your idea and if there is any more work you need to do before bringing it to the market.

Tap Into Trends

You can utilize Clubhouse as a form of social listening. You can follow influential people in your industry and keep tabs on all the changes that are occurring in your industry. It’s a way to do some market research to learn more about your potential customers. If your product or service falls into a specific niche, you can also immerse yourself in that audience to gain a deeper understanding of their needs and behaviors.

With audio becoming a major component in digital content, Clubhouse is a step into finding your voice. How is your business using this new social media platform? Contact us today if you’re looking to develop a Clubhouse strategy for your brand.

Instagram Continues To Add New Features | Digital Scoop 029


 

As Instagram continues to grow, so does it’s increase in new tools and features. Instagram has rolled out a couple of official new additions, while other new tools coming soon.

First, Instagram has confirmed the launch of GIFs in Direct, including a new ‘Random’ GIF button, which could add an interesting element to your private chats. Usage of Instagram DMs has been rising, reflecting the broader trend towards private messaging, so it makes sense for the platform to give the option more focus, and more communication options to consider.

All of their marketing mentions this feature being in Direct, not DMs. This could be happening because of Instagram’s plan to launch it’s standalone messaging app, Direct.

The second officially announced feature from Instagram is video tagging, enabling you to make specific users aware of your posted video.

In addition to these confirmed features, several others have been highlighted.

Instagram’s also sorting out hashtag cramming. They are reportedly testing out separating hashtags from captions. The separation of hashtags from captions could be the solution to the annoying crop of hashtags some people include… cluttering their post. A separate button called “Add Hashtags” will appear on the New Post screen, which will allow users to use hashtags without including them in the caption. Thank the social gods!

Another one of Instagram’s in-development features include Quiz Stickers for Stories, which would enable users to share an interactive quiz question with their audience, and add multiple answer options. You would then be able to make one of the answers the correct one, which would be highlighted to the user when selected.

Instagram also continues to move forward with its test of limiting access to your Instagram Stories by location/region restriction. In that capacity could also be extended to individual posts, giving you more control over where your Instagram content can be seen. The option would be particularly beneficial for global brands with a multinational presence.

It’s smart for Instagram to maintain the momentum, and keep a hold on user interest while releasing all of these small features keeping users engaging on the app, which in turn, puts more pressure on competitors to try to keep up.

Will these new features change the way your brand will use Instagram? Comment below and let me know!

 

YouTube Launches Channel Memberships, Merchandise and Premieres | Digital Scoop 026

YouTube Goes After Instagram

YouTube creators are gaining three major new tools to generate revenue from their videos outside of traditional advertising, as well as those that will help them better engage their fans. This comes after Instagram’s launch of IGTV, so clearly this is a rebuttal since IGTV offers similar features.

This new features include rollout of channel memberships, merchandising, and the launch of Premieres. 

Memberships

Creators with 100,000 subscribers or more, are over 18 and members of the YouTube Partner Program qualify for this feature. For $4.99 per month, this feature will allow subscribers to gain access to members-only posts in the Community tab where creators can share custom perks, like access to an exclusive videos, news, announcements, and more. YouTube says it will vet these perks manually, to ensure they meet YouTube’s guidelines and are something the creator can actually deliver. The perks can be almost anything the creator wants to offer, within YouTube’s guidelines.

Merchandise

In addition to memberships, creators will also be able to sell to fans directly. The feature will show pictures of creators’ merchandise in a display under their videos. This tool is available to all channels in the U.S. with over 10,000 subscribers. This greatly increases the visibility of YouTubers’ branded gear on the platform. Previously, creators could only paste a link with no options to upload images of their merchandise in their video descriptions. This has the opportunity to increase sales by getting more clicks to products. Previously, people had to click “show more” to see the full description, creating an extra step in the process.

Premieres

Finally, YouTubers can use a new feature called “Premieres” that creates a landing page they can promote ahead of a video’s release. This page will also have a chat feature, like Live videos do, which means creators can use Super Chat and take advantage of Channel Membership perks even if they aren’t doing live content.

The videos are uploaded in the same interface on YouTube, so there’s no new workflow to learn beyond toggling the “Premiere” switch on. Creators can also join in the chats as the video goes live to engage with their fans around this pre-recorded content, as well as comment on the videos before they start. When the Premiere wraps, it’s posted as a regular video on the site (without the two-minute countdown video YouTube adds).

What’s next?

YouTube said its version of Stories will arrive for all eligible creators with more than 10,000 subscribers later this year as well. The announcements come at a critical time for YouTube, as Facebook and Instagram are trying to woo creators away to their platforms and video hubs with unique features of its own.

 

Facebook to Remove Trending Feature | Digital Scoop 024

 

Facebook to Remove Trending Feature.

Facebook says that it’s removing its “Trending” feature to make way for “future news experiences” on Facebook. Trending was introduced on the platform in 2014 as a way to help people discover news topics that were popular across the platform. It aggregated news topics based on what’s being shared on Facebook by users the most. It was also only available in five countries and accounted for less than 1.5% of clicks to news publishers on average.

Stated from Facebook’s press release, “From research we found that over time people found the product to be less and less useful. We will remove Trending from Facebook next week and we will also remove products and third-party partner integrations that rely on the Trends API.” 

Facebook also says that the way people consume news on Facebook is changing to be primarily on mobile, and increasingly through news video. So they are exploring, or trying out, new ways to help people stay informed about timely, breaking news that matters to them, while making sure the news they see on Facebook is from trustworthy sources.

Here are three new changes to replace Trending (so far):

  • Breaking News Label
    • This was a test they actually already have been running with about 80 publishers across North America, South America, Europe, India and Australia lets publishers put a “breaking news” indicator on their posts in News Feed, making it easier for readers to identify news while scrolling through their feed. They’ll also be testing breaking news notifications depending on the pages you follow.
  • Today In
    • Facebook is testing a whole new dedicated section on Facebook called Today In that connects people to the latest breaking and important news from local publishers in their city, as well as updates from local officials, businesses and organizations.
    • The test is running in just six cities for now: New Orleans, La.; Little Rock, Ark.; Billings, Mont.; Peoria, Ill.; Olympia, Wash.; and Binghamton, N.Y. Facebook users who self-identify as living in those areas will be able to visit the new section to see local information, like stories from local publishers or emergency updates from local authorities. Facebook is using machine-learning software to surface content in this new section.
    • This may change the newsfeed algorithm again for businesses. Stay tuned with Digital Scoop.
  • News Video in Watch:
    • Facebook will soon have a dedicated section on Facebook Watch in the US where people can view live coverage, daily news briefings and weekly deep dives that are only exclusive to Watch.

From the data breach to Fake News and content, Facebook needs to do something to keep users interested in the platform. What do you think of the changes? Comment below and let me know!

Facebook Video Monetization And Promotion Tools | Digital Scoop 023

Facebook has released a new set of monetization options and best practices for video creators as it seeks to build interest in its Watch platform.

 

The new monetization options include:

  1. Pre-Roll Ads
  2. Preview Trailer
  3. Ad Auto Break Insertions
  4. Pre-Publish Brand Safety Check

Facebook Tests Out New Video Format called Facebook Premieres | Digital Scoop 022

Facebook Premieres

Facebook is testing a new video format called Facebook Premieres that will let video creators, publishers and shows post prerecorded video as live footage. Facebook says its new video format is currently being tested among a group with a wider rollout happening soon.

The prerecorded videos will play similar to a livestream, allowing viewers the chance to interact with the video as it is broadcast on the site. Comments, reactions and interactions with the prerecorded Premieres video will happen in real time, as with Facebook’s Live videos.

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LinkedIn Adds New GIF Feature In Messaging | Digital Scoop 021

LinkedIn Adds New GIF Access Within its On-Platform Messaging

LinkedIn on a bender to tap into the trends of other social networks, even if those trends don’t necessarily seem like a perfect fit for the professional platform.

LinkedIn’s latest trending option is the addition of an immediately accessible GIF library within their message flow, powered by Tenor, a gif sharing platform, via a new partnership.

The functionality is pretty much the same as adding GIFs on Facebook. You will be able to tap the GIF icon on the toolbar and search for a gif to add to your chat.