social media

How to Check if Someone Follows You on Instagram

Instagram has over 700 million daily active users. If you are thinking that your business could never fit in on Instagram, maybe it’s time to reconsider. Instagram continues to siphon users away from Snapchat after blatantly copying their disappearing stories feature. Instagram stories hit 200M users and quickly outpaced Snapchat.

Building up a following is an important connection with 25 to 40-year old social media users. Engagement – likes, comments, and shares – are very imperative too. First, it is important to grow your audience. If you are managing the social media channels for a brand, then it’s typical that accounts do not follow most other users back. For example, fashion retailer Nordstrom has 2.5 million followers but only follows 423 of them back. However, if you are not managing a brand that is working on growing the follower count, be sure your vanity numbers are balanced.

It’s a common strategy for social media users to build up their numbers by following other users, waiting for them to follow back, and the unfollowing them a few days later. I don’t employ this tactic because the account ends up with a large percentage of uninterested followers. Once an account begins to build up its follower count, it can be challenging to tell if another Instagram user is following you back. Certainly, you can look at your follower list on the Instagram app. If you tap on your followers list, you will see a long list of follower usernames but here are no convenient sort of search options.

I use two tools to manage my Instagram followers. One is Hootsuite Pro, which I’ve discussed in producivity videos and blog posts. The other is an app called Followers Insight. With Hootsuite Pro an Instagram column can be added to keep track of followers. Although this makes it easy to scroll down the list, it is still not that convenient. Unfortunately, like in the native app, there are no sort or search features. In addition, you cannot tell if you are following them or not. However, it HootSuite Pro is very easy and convenient way to follow and unfollow other users from this list view.

The app I use to track followers is called Followers Insight. It has two lists, one to show me who recently unfollowed me and another to show me who is not reciprocating. It’s convenient, simple and easy to use. The biggest drawback is that if you are managing multiple Instagram accounts, the app only tracks one of them.

Followers Insight is the clear winner for me. It’s free and very easy to use. No, it does not have many features but it gets the job done. I use HootSuite Pro for other social media management so I have the Instagram Followers stream added but I don’t check that stream very often because I use the Followers Insight app instead.

I have more videos about Instagram on my YouTube channel. I cover everything about social media, optimizing images, getting the best return on investment! Of course, I’m on Instagram too! Tap the social share buttons and let’s connect!

How to Get Your Livestream Discovered With the Facebook Live Map

by Admin

How to Get Your Livestream Discovered With the Facebook Live Map

Facebook introduced livestream video back in December 2015. It gave verified users the ability to stream live video right from their Facebook newsfeeds. Any follower received a notification of the livestream and could instantly tune into to see the show.

Early adopters were only able to livestream from mobile devices. The feature was rolled out to iPhone users first, then Android users shortly thereafter. Eventually Facebook Live became available to all profiles and page and from both desktop and mobile devices. This one of the major differentiators between Facebook Live and YouTube Live Broadcasts. Since launching livestreaming video, new features for Facebook Live have been added including viewer reactions, comment replay, and filters.

Facebook Live posts have consistently outperformed all other types of posts including images, text-only, and uploaded videos. It is typical of Facebook to allow new features to outperform against its algorithm. Livestreams typically get nine to ten times the reach over other types of posts.

Although Facebook livestreams typically perform better, there are still more things users can do to promote their stream and drive more viewers to watch the broadcasts. One of these is to use the Facebook Live Maps setting. Livestreams with location data re now added to a worldwide map. This map, hosted by Facebook, shows all the live streams happening worldwide.

To add your livestream to this map simply turn on location data for the livestream, your profile, or your Facebook page. The word livestream map is accessible via https://www.facebook.com/livemap. Viewers can see a list of featured videos on the left side column. They can also hover over any of the blue dots on the map to see a livestream. The larger the dot, the more viewers that stream has.

Brands should take advantage of this additional path to content discovery by adding location data to their livestreams. In some instances, for example, a local event, it is possible that a Facebook Page stream may only want to be discovered by nearby viewers. In that scenario location data should stay off. However, most would still use location data for the sake of public relations and get more reach.

Live streams only appear on the Facebook Live Map if it is a public broadcast and location data was shared publicly.
There are two ways to share location data:

Add a location to a public broadcast
Include your location publicly on your profile or Page

Facebook users can always go directly to the map and find other livestreams happening near them or anywhere else in the world. It is an innovative way to discover content. It is also a good way to get the attention of other viewers WO might not otherwise find your content via the newsfeed.

Five Step Plan for Social Media Success

by Admin

Five Step Plan for Social Media Success

If you own a small or medium business and are considering jumping into social media marketing, then this is the place to begin. Even if you are a larger, more established organization, your strategy may not be going as well as you had hoped. Regardless of the situation or success, it is good to periodically step back and evaluate your social media efforts to see if it is working as well as it could be!

Identify Your Audience

If you have had your business up and running for a time, I hope that you have a good idea of whom your target audience is. It is imperative to understand your specific current customer base. If your marketing demographic is not the same as who was targeted then it is time to revisit your business and marketing plan or possibly rework your product.

Demographics can be segmented into several markets so an organization can accurately target its consumers. A marketing demographic is segmented by age, gender, and income level. Other demographic factors that may affect a strategy are race, religion, family size, ethnicity, and education.

Selecting the Right Channels

Often, small business owners want to be on all social channels without really understanding the resources (time, content creation, and money) required for success on each platform. For organizations that are just starting out, it is best to select one or two social media channels and master them first. One of these should be Facebook. Although that sounds like a contradiction to the above blurb about knowing your audience, the reach of Facebook cannot be ignored. It is the largest social media channel. Even if you know your target audience lives on Instagram or Snapchat, be sure include Facebook business page in the strategy.

Set goals!

After selecting the social media channels, it is imperative to set goals. Be sure that everyone involved, understands these goals and receives benchmark reports. An example goal is of want to gain 1000 followers on Facebook within the next 60 days. Each goal is set for a specific platform and is measurable.

Goals can include:

Increase brand awareness
Sell from social media
Increase website visits
Increase engagement with content

Jumping straight to “sell 100 widgets in the next 20 days” is not likely to be an achievable goal unless you invented the next internet sensation. It is possible to work toward multiple goals simultaneously. For example, you may be building up a following on Instagram while also working on increasing engagement. Revisit your goals at least monthly. Revise them up or down depending on results. As your marketing strategy grows, there will be goals for every piece of content in addition to those set for the channel!

Profile and Branding

Each social channel has a set amount of space for a textual description related to your business. Each social profile has a profile image that appears at the top of the profile and next to comments and posts, in a smaller format. Most social channels also have space for a large banner or ”cover image” which is rather prominent. Be sure these elements are kept up-to-date. Images should represent the brand with clear images. A short mission statement or call-to-action is permissible on all social channels on the banner images.

Your social profile images may be a consumer’s first impression. Be sure profiles are on-brand at all times. Don’t just set and forget them either. Freshen up social media account images to keep things lively!

Measure

You’ve set goals and are on your way to developing a content strategy. Establish how you are going to measure those goals set up in the beginning! Some content is easier to track than others are. I have done workshops and videos on tracking the return on investment in social media. It is possible! Tagging links where possible is the easiest and best way to track. Setup ecommerce conversion in Google Analytics or other stats package. Some channels like Instagram and Snapchat are much more difficult to track ROI. You may have to promo codes and measure lift.

Productivity

Visit the metrony YouTube channel for productivity hacks and the actual tools used every day!

Social Media Strategy for Unsexy Businesses

by Admin

Is Your Business Too Boring for Social media?

Travel, beauty, fashion, tech and food are all easy topics to work into a social media strategy. These industries are naturally popular because of their broad appeal. IN addition, they are ALL easy to represent in photographs. Who doesn’t love to sift through travel photos and dream of new destinations?

Not all businesses are as easy to promote on social media. Many B2B brands are a challenge. Think of your paper for your photocopier, the company that manufactures contact lenses or other products and services. Lately, I have heard these labeled as boring or even unsexy!

Last year during a webinar about social media audits, an attendee asked about his “unsexy” business. He wanted to know what sort of content he could use. He was convinced his family-owned moving company could never be successful on social.

A social media marketing strategy for unsexy businesses is indeed challenging, but it is not impossible. The moving company is actually easy to work with on social. The owner just needed to expand his thinking and remember all the reasons why his company is helpful to their clients. Almost everyone moves at least once in their life, even if is just a temporary move to a college dorm. Not everyone uses a moving service, but they all have the same concerns and needs.

This same philosophy applies to any marketing campaign no matter if it is boring or sexy! Think about your brand’s mission, purpose, and value proposition. What is it that keeps you in business? How is your company or product better than the competition?

A so-called boring business can draw on all types of content that is useful to their potential customers. The moving company should emphasize that it is family owned and why that is an advantage over a national chain. They can convey this through blog posts. Address movers’ concerns and incorporate it into your marketing and social media plan.

These are perfect for photos and video content. Show the potential client how to pack, talk about selecting a good neighborhood for that suits their needs, remind them about insurance, point out nearby transportation and local schools. Obviously the helpful staff, clean moving vans, and happy customers all make for good content.

On January 15, I will be speaking about boring businesses at Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas. I have some case studies of large corporations including a famous municipality, truck parts, and taxes! What is more boring than taxes? Actually, I can name a few genres!

I hope to see you at Affiliate Summit West 2017.

How to Choose the Best Social Media Platform for Your Business

by Admin

How to Choose the Best Social Media Platform for Your Business

There are common questions every business asks when setting up a new social media strategy. One common question is, “Which social media platform is best for my business?” What is really meant is, which social media channel is going to drive the most website traffic and sales for the business.

First, determine what resources your business has to devote to social media and other marketing efforts. Are you a solopreneur who is going to work on a do-it-yourself (DIY) strategy and little or no budget? You will need to invest in some free or low cost tools to your social content creation does not suck up the day, every day!

Brands have a full marketing team and art department that works together to produce content and measure results. A brand will most likely going be on all major social channels. They will also experiment with some of the more promising flash-in-the-pans in case one sticks. Remember Meerkat of just one year ago? Vine is gone now too, with Periscope barely hanging on. Trailblazer Snapchat is in a copycat battle with brazen Instagram.

Start with the largest social channel, Facebook. Founded in 2004, Facebook has over 1.18 billion daily active users on average. If a brand wants to have a real strategy on Facebook, they will have to optimize the mobile user’s experience too. Facebook has over 1.09 billion mobile daily active users on average. [1] The largest social channel also has the widest age range, although younger users favor Instagram and Snapchat.

What is the age range of your target audience? Whom do you need to reach to acquire more customers? Snapchat skews toward the younger audience with 46.8% of its users between the ages of 18 and 24. However, there are. More recent surveys shows 31% of 25 to 34 year olds use the mobile-only app. [2]

Can you represent your products well in photos? Visual social media platforms such as Instagram make photo sharing easy. If you r brand is about food, travel, beauty, or fitness these social channels are a good fit!

Like Snapchat, Instagram is also a mobile only social media app. As of June 2016 Instagram boasted over 500 million monthly active users! Any service can do well on Instagram with a little creativity and imagination.

The other highly visual app is Pinterest. The mobile and desktop social media channel has surpassed 150 million monthly active users, which is a 50% increase over last year’s numbers.
The social media site recently announced it has surpassed 150 million monthly active users,

Even if your business or brand is social media veteran, do not ever stop asking those first questions. Many start posting on social and never take the time or do not have the resources to assess their efforts and regroup. Periodically check analyze your metrics too see which social media channel is working best for your brand. Try to at least estimate the ROI and consider repositioning as needed.

Sources:
[1] Facebook Company Newsroom
[2] Comscore 2016 U.S. Cross-Platform Future in Focus
[3] Pinterest Blog

Social Media for Live Events

by Admin

Social Media for Live Events

One of the most common questions businesses working on a social media strategy ask is, “What do I post?” I am asked this by businesses of all sizes; from startups to established multi-million dollar brands. Social media users of all experience levels want to know what type of content works well for their followers and how often to on various social media channels. Early social media consisted of simple text posts that may or may not have included images. Now, an imageless post is a sure way to watch your content get lost in an endless newsfeed or stream. Images must be well thought out to attract and hold a reader’s attention. Enter the social media video!

Live events are excellent ways to connect with your customers, vendors, and social media following. Of course the events have to be well chose and relevant to your business too! Live events give you a chance to talk directly to your audience, in person. Social media helps gets your audience to your venue.

When I am out speaking at public events or developing content for my blog and my Metrony and PinTalk YouTube channels, I make it clear that I am a big proponent of video content. I have been working hard on my own YouTube channel – yes, please subscribe –as it allows me to answer readers’ questions and to demonstrate features of social media channels. It took me over a year just to get set-up with audio-visual equipment that I like. I did not have someone to show me what to do, until I sat and spoke to a photography expert at a conference. Since then I have been building up my video and social media content, as I know how useful it is.

Video is one of the best ways to convey your brand’s message to an audience. It is great for ecommerce selling, as stats support that users are more likely to buy after watching a video of a product. The cost of video production has come way down too. All but the big brands used to shy away from video because the cost was prohibitive. Fortunately, quality video content is much cheaper to create thanks to smartphones and followers love to experience events with you!

Three major social media channels – Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat – have made it easy for us to connect with fans via images and live video. Below you’ll find a short list on what works well as well as the strong points of all three.

Facebook Live

Facebook is nets over 8 billion video views daily. It is a fun and engaging way to share an event, such as a trade show, sporting event, or news event with your audience. Facebook is the largest social media channel and therefore gives a brand access to the largest audience. Although Facebook has the largest audience, remember the younger segment of users favor Instagram and Snapchat. This will help determine what content to post on Facebook and what to use on Snapchat. Yes, content should be customized for each channel. One easy way to do this is by changing who is narrating the video. A 40-something may connect with your Facebook audience, while a millennial is perfect for Instagram, and Snapchat would do well with a teen. Another way to connect to multiple age groups is to vary which products are featured.

The advantage of Facebook Live is that a video’s viewing audience can be restricted by age range, gender or location. Restrictions help you ensure that brands do not lose followers by blasting the wrong audience with orrelevant or too much content. Facebook Live continuous videos have no time limit.

For example, if a brand is at a trade show and has a giveaway or offer where the winner must be present to win, it makes no sense to broadcast to their entire Facebook audience. Instead, restrict the giveaway to those who are nearby.

Facebook Live lets viewers can post questions to the live stream giving the broadcaster time to respond during a live stream. The speaker can answer question in real time providing fabulous audience engagement.

Snapchat

Although Facebook has a much larger number of users, the youngest segment has moved on to other social media channels, namely Snapchat. This social channel’s users watch 10 billion videos daily. Yeah, 10 BILLION! That is significantly more than the number of daily video views reported by Facebook.[1]

Snapchat reaches a different audience than Facebook. Sixty-percent of U.S. 13- to 34-year-old smartphone users are also Snapchat users [2]. Do not ignore Snapchat if you think your brand only fits an older audience. The average age is increasing as older smartphone users embrace the social media mobile app [3]

So how do you use Snapchat for at a live event? The content on Snapchat is like no other social media channel. It is clever, creative, unique, and frequently humorous. Use Snapchat to allow viewers to experience the event with your brand! In the days leading up to an event, post teaser photos and videos announcing that your brand will be on-site. Show with images and videos what you are doing to prepare for the event and where your fans can expect to find you.

Brands can use photos, videos, or a combination of both to lead users through the live event. Coupons and promotions, although not clickable, can be communicated by drawing on snaps or having the narrator say it during a video. Snapchat users can control who sees their stories by changing the privacy settings on their accounts.

Instagram Stories

Instagram launched Instagram Stories in early August 2016. Instagram did not attempt to rename anything their new update as many Snapchat ideas were used in the creation of Instagram accounts. Even the name “stories” was copied. Instagram Stories allow brands to share events in ways pre-story Instagram could not. Like Snapchat, Instagram Stories have text and drawing tools available. Also like Snapchat, the photos and videos disappear after 24 hours. The use is the same as it is for Snapchat posts.

The advantage of Instagram Stories over Snapchat is that Instagram has a much larger user base; 500 million versus Snapchat’s 100 million. It is the best social channel for connecting with millennials. To enhance the strategy, Businesses can also run ads on Instagram via a self-service portal. Whereas on Snapchat, the ad portal is only open via agencies with access to the API and with large budges.

Sources:
[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-28/snapchat-user-content-fuels-jump-to-10-billion-daily-video-views

[2] https://www.snapchat.com/ads

[3] http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2016/04/15/a-sneak-peek-into-snapchats-advertising-revolution/#3926c5845ead