Tag: Content Marketing

Top 3 Uses of Professional Headshots in Your Social Media Marketing

Images of YOU are going to bring higher engagement than any stock image out there. The more you have to work with, the better you’ll be able to build an online presence – both on your website and in your social media marketing.

Connecting with Your Audience

Plan to get a series of great photos done professionally that show your brand voice – indoor, outdoor, doing a fun activity you love, different times of the year. The variety will be helpful all year long in social media marketing. Leave blank space in areas for adding quotes and tips. The less busy the background, the more area you’ll have to work with. Most importantly, showcase your personality! These images will help you grab the attention of your audience and will help them feel like they are getting to know you. This familiarity is important for connection and connection is what social media is all about!

Building Trust & Credibility

In social media, we call profiles that have no pictures (that just use the generic, standard default image) as eggheads. Avoid the eggheads always. What a lack of a profile picture suggests, whether true or not, is that this person isn’t real. They either don’t really exist, they are pretending to someone else, or they aren’t active on that particular platform or channel.

Because these people are hiding, they aren’t to be trusted or taken seriously. While adding a profile pic won’t make you an expert in your industry – not having one means immediate disqualification. The first step to earning credibility and earning trust online is to simply show up.

Showcasing Your Brand

“Brand photography is one of the best ways to create credibility and increase your like-know-trust factor with your savvy audience.”
Hilary Hartling

While traditional headshots are better than nothing, the best thing to do is invest in the talents of a brand photographer. What is brand photography? The goal of a quality brand photography session is to capture the essence of your brand in photos. These images are less professional and stiff and have more of a lifestyle feel to them. These images increase your brand recognition and help the audience to connect with you in a real, authentic way.

If you want to be found as a business, you have to stop hiding behind other people’s images and content. It’s time to show up so your audience can resonate with you.

Are you struggling with not understanding how to use social media for your business?  Not sure when to post, how to post, or what #Hashtags even are? Over a 3-month period, we will develop a Road Map of exactly how to use social media for your business. During our Quarterly Strategy Road Map period, we will work on ads, reporting, creating posts for higher engagement, and breaking through fears and frustrations regarding social media marketing.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

Using Testimonials in Your Social Media Can Build Your Business

Testimonials are gold to showcase how well someone appreciates your product or service. Popular sites for recommendations and reviews include: LinkedIn personal accounts, Facebook Business Pages, and Google My Business. Other sites are out there that we don’t currently endorse for a variety of reasons not be shared here.

When someone takes the time to write out a recommendation, you can hear the intentional selection of words. Give them a template to use or some clear, simple directions to follow to get testimonials that make a bigger impact. The easier you make the process or request, the more likely you’ll get a positive, quick response. You don’t want to end up in someone’s to-do later list or folder.

Here are some examples we use when asking for feedback.

Examples:

Thank you for working with me the last few months on your social media!

Would you mind taking a moment to recommend my work with you on the             ?

Would you mind taking a moment to recommend my work with you on XYZ?

Looking for details on:

– How I teach?

– What we did on the XYZ?

– Was the information at the right pace?

– How you felt when you started?

– How you felt when we completed?

– What you look forward to implementing?

– Ongoing support for XYZ?

– Would you recommend me to others?

I would love your support. I am seeking recommendations in Facebook, Google and LinkedIn. Here are the links:

 

Make certain you give them the actual links. To encourage people to respond quickly, you want to make the process as easy as possible.

If you don’t want to overwhelm them with all the links at once, switch your focus each quarter to boosting your recommendations on one of these channels. Perhaps you focus on Facebook the first quarter, Google the 2nd quarter, and LinkedIn for quarter three. Take a break off for the holidays and start the cycle all over again in the new year. Whatever works best for you.

Regardless of the platform, repurpose those testimonials by also posting them on your website and sharing them in your social media channels. We commonly create testimonials graphics for our clients and share them on their social media to get more reach with this amazing feedback!

As a social media user, I bet you have noticed that people engage more with social media content when they relate to the post or resonate with the message. As a small business, are you ready to define your story and build a long-term relationship with a loyal audience? Sign up for a Discovery Session to see which social media marketing programs best fit your needs.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

Developing a Social Media Strategy for Marketing Your Business

Posting consistency on your business social media channels is vital. Consistency is one of the keys to success on social media. However, making sure you have a post up every day isn’t necessarily a social media strategy. If you’ve found that posting to social media isn’t producing the results you had hoped, it’s time to evaluate what you are posting and whether or not it’s the type of content your audience actually wans in their social media feeds.

When developing a social media strategy for marketing your business, these three tips are what we’d like you to focus on right now:

Organic Growth

In today’s social media world, there are really only two paths for growth on Facebook for small businesses. Organic growth is where you grow your audience on social media without investing in any platform-based advertising. By creating and sharing branded content, you attract like-minded individuals and nurture those relationships through social media engagement and posting valuable information. The best organic growth strategies incorporate community building – encouraging your audience to come back daily for connection and community.

Social Media Advertising

Once you know your content is working (because your audience is growing and engaging with your posts), it’s time to consider investing in social media advertising. For many industries, social media advertising is quite affordable and helps to draw new traffic to your channels. Once you know a post is doing well, boosting it can draw fresh eyes – people that may decide to follow your channel (growing your audience).

You can also craft ads using a targeted strategy to draw traffic to your website, landing page, newsletter sign-up, or other call to action area. These ads don’t necessarily have to start as original content in your feed. However, since you are sending traffic elsewhere this effort probably won’t result in an increase in social media followers on that channel.

Which method works best? It depends on your strategy and what marketing goal you are trying to reach. Are you trying to drive traffic to your new launch? Increase your Facebook followers? Build your email marketing list? Each effort requires a specialized advertising approach.

Analytics & Reporting

What you think makes a great post won’t always align with what your audience believes is valuable content. That’s why it’s important to track your data frequently, evaluating what is and isn’t working, so you can optimize your social media posts to gain even more reach and engagement.

Social media strategy is about building your audience on your social platforms. This is done with a consistent content marketing strategy and by boosting your efforts through paid advertising. A content marketing strategy is key to organic growth so creating original content (blogs, videos, podcasts) using monthly themes and then repurposing that content for sharing on social media comes first and is then followed up by boosting content that is doing well and creating ads to direct targeted traffic to what you are sharing.

Are you looking for social media training you can participate in, right from the comfort of your home?  Join others utilizing our 40+ video training series that you can participate in, at your own pace, from your home.  We have a Private Facebook Support Group, Monthly Ask the Expert Mastermind Sessions, FREE Ebook and regular new videos to support your marketing. Learn everything from creating the editorial calendar, to creating custom branded images, to the best use of hashtags, to paid ads and reporting by joining the Social Power Program.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

#PlanAhead – How to Select the Holidays for Your Editorial Calendar that Reflects Your Brand Culture

You’ve probably seen people, and companies, post holiday graphics on their social media pages. Often, it’s their way of wishing you a Happy New Year or getting excited about fireworks on the 4th of July with you. Sometimes, it’s a silly holiday involving food, or animals, or something completely nonsensical.

Why do businesses post holiday graphics on their social media pages?

Easy. People love them.

Your audience is inclined to engage with a holiday post because

  1. It’s fun.
  2. You aren’t selling them anything.

You are simply sharing a moment with someone else and you aren’t requiring your audience to take action. Not only will they be happy to like or comment on your post, if it’s done well, they’ll also share it with their audience.

This is good news for businesses trying to get around algorithm challenges. Why? Well, each time a follower engages with one of your posts, it’s telling the algorithm that they like that sort of content (and your page) and it should send them more of your content. That’s a win/win/win. You’re happy, the follower is happy, and the algorithm is being trained to deliver more content tailored to your audience’s interests.

Where can you go to find some options so you can make a plan for the new year to create posts around holidays that mean something to you?

There are lots of places to go, but we recommend DaysOfTheYear.com. This site is not only beautiful, it is also easy to navigate. You can see holidays based on today or a specific month. We like to go month to month and hand pick holidays that we think our audience will enjoy. It’s loaded with tons of good options and, if you set aside a couple of hours this month, you could have a list of holidays for next year ready to go!

Keep in mind that some holidays change so just because it’s on a specific day this year, it could be different next year. For example, if the holiday you chose is always on the 2nd Saturday of the month, you’ll have to come back and check each day next year in order to be accurate.

Don’t go crazy with the holidays either. One to five a month is more than enough. Your content needs to be about more than silly occasions. Also, keep your brand in mind when choosing holidays. Does it resonate with the business you are trying to build?

Happy hunting! We can’t wait to engage with your holiday content this year.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

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