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Using Instagram Story Tools to Engage your Viewers

Instagram is by far my favorite social media outlet. I shamelessly could sit there for hours following tags, searching for new wellness accounts to follow, and seeing what people are up to. But the thing that always grabs my attention are the Instagram Stories. To me, they are by far the most engaging and intriguing part of Instagram.

Instagram Stories are a huge viewer engagement opportunity. They add a personal level that truly grabs your followers’ attention.

Involving your Audience

There are so many tools you can use on Instagram Stories to make your audience feel like they are a part of your journey or your daily life. Here are the top engaging tools that you can use to engage your viewers:

Poll
Ask me a Question
Countdowns
Swipe Up

Each of these tools either ask for an action step from your followers such as responding with a question of their own or giving you their opinion, or they encourage your followers to check back for the post/event that the countdown was for.

Poll

Poll is by far, my personal favorite when following stories. It gives me a chance to feel involved in the person’s post. Polls are great for hearing what your viewers want to see. Use polls to give options to them and see what they are interested in listening to. This will encourage them to continue following you and checking in for the content they feel they had a say in. As health professionals, there are so many topics to talk about so see what information is being asked for.

Ask a Question

This is a great tool for health and wellness companies. Most people that are interested in health have questions and if they are following you, they are interested in what you have to say. A trend right now for fitness/health professionals is a Q&A session via IG Stories using the “ask a question” feature. Set up a time to have your followers ask questions, post their questions in your stories and address their questions during the videos. This involves the person asking the question and gives your viewers answers to questions they may have as well. During these sessions, utilize hashtags and tags to increase engagement and give the viewers something to follow up on after your session is complete. You can also create the label for the question meaning you can dictate what direction you want the questions to go. This will keep the conversation and videos you make focused on your specialties.

Countdowns

The Countdown feature can be great for creating excitement for an upcoming event, product release, or follow up post. Blogs are great to use countdowns for as well. It creates a buzz about your content and with the help of another feature (see below), you can have the follow up post lead directly to your blog.

Swipe Up

This can be one of the most useful and easy features in terms of marketing. The Swipe Up feature is used to take a viewer directly to a site that you would like them to see. You can increase website traffic, send your viewers directly to a post you want to highlight, or for healthcare professionals, send viewers to a scheduling system to get started utilizing your business. Consumers want easy ways to find information and we love social media. The Swipe Up feature address both of these aspects. Please note that to utilize the “Swipe Up” feature, you must have a minimum number of 10,000 on your business account.

Using Stories to Increase Website Traffic

By utilizing these features, you engage your viewers, give them a voice, provide information, and direct them to the next step. These features create an interactive environment and spike curiosity in your business. It may start just as another Instagram account for them to follow, but, if you keep providing top information that is sought after and provide an engaging environment, those followers may become future clients.

February 19, 2019/by Amanda Anderson

Instagram, Membership Only, Social Media

Instagram Insights

Let’s talk Insights! If you are anything like me, you could care less about the analytics right? They are just numbers, what do they mean? I have always loved numbers, but analytics not so much. If you put those numbers and stats into a pretty infographic, then I am all over it! Since I have been a social media manager for almost 10 years, I have had to find that LOVE for analytics and be able to explain them in such a way where our clients get it! With Instagram busness profile, their insights ROCK! I get it! I would say it’s a mix of pretty pictures and hardcore data. I love the way it compiles the information to make it easy and understandable for you to read.

When Instagram Insights came out, I was not sure how much I trusted them. I remember when Facebook Insights were out and some of that data was wack! I mean for a few of our clients, it just didn’t make sense or even add up. I always said take Facebook Insights with a grain of salt. Now, with that being said they have come a long way and I think they learned a lot, so they were able to implement more pros into the Instagram Insights.

Instagram Insights:

These insights collect data for you that will help you learn more about your followers and audience. We started our Social Speak Network Instagram not even a year ago and we have some awesome insights to who our audience is, what days and times they are looking at our account, where they are located and much, much more!

Overview

First things first, you have to have a business Instagram account o get these AWESOME analytics. When you log into your account, on the top righthand corner you will see 4 lines, click there and this will take you to your insights.

From there the first thing you will see if your overview: this is going to show you your incease or decrease of followers from the week before and the reach from the week before. You want these number to always be in the +, if you see a – negatice or decrease we need to take a further look. Below your weekly numbers you then see your actions meaning how many people liked your posts that week. We had +19 actions in the past week. So, with all the posts we put up we had +19 actions meaning people liked our posts or made a comment.

Discovery

Ok, let’s discover something new! This area is all about discovery, just like it says. It is going to tell you where your post was seen and how many people it reached. This shows your reach and impressions. Your reach is the number of accounts you reached this week. Impressions are the number of times the media you created this week were seen. Your posts are discovered in particular places within Instagram such as a user’s home feed, a search someone did, your profile, your location or location tag and/or a hashtag you had used.

Demographics

This is where it gets exciting! You really get to see who your audience is. I love how Instagram has put together these insights.

The demographics on Instagram insights are great, they tell you the % of men and women that are engaging in your brand, the top locations, age range (which is key) also a HUGE nugget of information here is the days and times that people are engaging. So Monday early mornings may be one of your biggest days, whereas maybe Thursdays between 11-2 are not very good. You can play around with this and see what weeks, days, and times are best for you and your brand. Then create your strategy around those days and times to be sure to give that value back to your audience.

YAY, we have shown you all about Instagram Insights, now what do you do?

Download our Instagram Insights Tracker by clicking HERE

March 26, 2018/by Amber Irwin

Instagram, Membership Only, Social Media, Video

Instagram Stories

All aboard! It’s time to jump on the Instagram Stories Train. Did you know that Instagram Stories has over 800 million people that use this feature??? WOW! That is amazing. Below is a video that talks about the best ways to use Instagram Stories for your business.

Some tips to remember:

Have a plan for your stories – what are your goals when creating your stories
Use all the features that Instagram offers you, the stickers, colors, text, selfie sticker, location, as you use more of these options Instagram will push your story to more places
Try out the different features of stories to mix it up with Type, Live, Normal Picture or Video, Boomerang, Superzoom, Rewind, Hands-Free, and Stop-Motion
Build your brand through Instagram Stories
Stories only last for 24hours – be sure to share to Facebook Stories and as IG posts
Videos for Instagram Stories can be 15 seconds

Topics for Instagram Stories:

Talk about products or services you offer
FAQ
Being an expert in your field
Exclusive offers for your Instagram Followers
Signing up for FREE offer or newsletter
Behind the Scenes
Testimonials
Contests
New Blogs
Recipes
Podcasts

We would love to hear about your Instagram Stories Successes!

March 22, 2018/by Amber Irwin

Blog, Growth Prompts, Instagram, Membership Only, Social Media

Step up your Instagram Game – What makes a good image (or feed)?

We have the basics set for Instagram, but now it is time to step up your game and create a cohesive strategy for your images and your Instagram feed. I wish I could say do X for a beautiful Instagram photo every time, but unfortunately, it all depends on your brand and the sentiment or feeling you are trying to evoke with your images.

In this post I’ll be exploring some of the ways to create an Instagram feed that you can be proud of! And, guess what? It all comes down to the images you plan to post.

Step 1: Make a List of the 3-5 things you/your business brand LOVES.

Common themes may be nature, organization, people, community, animals, sketches, etc. Think about what sentiment or feeling you get from these or that your brand wants to communicate.

Then think about the visual elements you are drawn to as they also relate to the sentiment of your brand.

For example, if you are a business coach and you value bringing clarity into your client’s lives and one of the things you are passionate about is organization, what other ways can you visually display this? What about crisp shadows and light filtering through architecture, or clean and clutter free office spaces.

Maybe your office values authenticity and personality. Would behind the scenes photos of office dogs capture a sense of playfulness?

In this stage, just brainstorm all the different types of things that encapsulate your brand, your passions, and the sentiment your want to convey.

Step 2: Find your color theme

By now you should have your brand colors selected, but if you don’t, that’s okay. Your Instagram can take on a slightly different color theme than your other marketing, as long as you are consistent.

To create a cohesive look for your Instagram photos, you need to always be thinking about the colors you are capturing in your images.

Which 2-3 colors do you want to bring into your color palette? I often enjoy feeds that are either vibrant with greens and colors found in nature or feeds that are crisp with whites and pops of color here and there. As you create your own ideas around colors, take a look at what some other popular accounts are doing below.

Once you have these colors, make sure to space them throughout your Instagram feed so you don’t have multiple photos in a row with the same color present.

Step 3: Use the same filter

One of my business partners is a photographer who emphasizes the need to edit photos before applying any filter. Personally, I think that is too much work for the average Instagram user, but I do agree that you should always be applying the same 1-2 filters in your posts so they all work well together.

However, as you you are taking the photos, pay attention to the natural light and backgrounds of your photos. Just being aware of what else is around can help you find consistency.

Step 4: Zoom in!

Sometimes on Instagram we try to pull too much into our images. Let’s say you are taking a picture of your office space for Instagram. Rather than trying to capture everything in one photo, zoom in on a single element. Not only will this make it easier to post more images of your office space, but you also will have a more visually appealing photo.

Sometimes I find that taking multiple photos at once can help keep the lighting consistent. So, pick a morning before your day gets busy and spend 30 minutes just taking photographs of small details within your office.

You aren’t going to publishing these all at once, but the simple zoomed in elements can provide a nice break within your Instagram feed.

Step 5: Always crop the same

Rather than trying to include both square and rectangular photos in your feed, it often is easier just to always crop your photos to square. There are some beautiful feeds which combine different photo orientations for a very playful feed, but for most of us, square works best.

Step 6: Create templates for any image with text overlay

We love utilizing Canva to create templates for any of those images where we share a quote or are announcing a sale, etc. Canva makes it easy to create that square image, incorporate your colors, and utilize your brand fonts.

Take a moment to think about what types of images you may want to use that will need a font overlay and how you would like the image to be displayed. Then, jump into canva and make a few variations of your designs that use different combinations of your brand colors. Below is an example for one of our clients.

Step 7: Don’t plan one image at a time, look at your entire Instagram feed

As you are compiling your posts for Instagram, I always recommend looking at how everything flows together. Apps like Later and the Preview App make it easy to visualize your entire Instagram feed rather than only one photo at a time.

Some common elements to consider are:

Tile Grid Layouts

Diagonal Grid Layouts

Row by row

Lines
Puzzles

As you can see, these take planning and sometimes if you are in a pinch, it is easier just to remember to rotate through your topics, your colors, and the various design elements of your photos 🙂

Step 8: Above all else, high quality photos win

As I’m sure you guessed, you always want to make sure you are using high quality photos for your Instagram feed. Some tips to remember as you are taking pictures:

If you use your phone for your images, the back camera is higher quality.
If you repost an image, use a reposting app rather than a screenshot. Better yet, reach out to the original photographer and ask if you can have the original photo to republish (and tag them in).
Quickly ‘enhance’ your photo on your phone with the built in photo editor.
Take multiple shots of the same item to ensure you use the one that is the most infocus with the best lighting.
The best times of day to take advantage of natural light are the mornings and the late afternoon. Here, the sun is still strong, but you won’t have such harsh shadows or bright spots in your images.

That’s it! Have fun with your Instagram photos and try to view your entire feed as an ever changing piece of art rather than each block as an individual element.

Please note, all images of Instagram Feeds are taken from The Preview App.

March 20, 2018/by Caitlin McDonald

Instagram, Membership Only, Social Media

Instagram Content Calendar

Now, that you have your Instagram Business account set up, and ready to rock and roll, right? We have spoken about the importance of having the business Instagram account, all the data it gives you and how it can help you define your target market. So, what now? It’s time to start posting! Before you just jump right into posting anything, it’s important to have a plan. What topics do you want to talk about on Instagram, what’s the story you want to tell? What value do you want to give your audience?

A couple resources:Content Calendar from videoLink to 2018 Holidays and HashtagsYou now know what you will be talking about each day, you can start looking for images on Pixabay or Pexels or even better take your own. Have the topic, image and post put together, you can even put the hashtags you want to use in each post. There are a few tools that we love to use to organize your Instagram posts:

These all help you organize your Instagram posts. Hootsuite, Buffer and Later, you can actually schedule your posts to your business Instagram account. Although this is great on time-management, we still highly recommend posting manually. If you are posting 7 days a week maybe you can schedule 3-4 posts per week and manually post the others. You still want to engage with your audience, follow people, comment and share posts. It can be easy to get comfortable with these awesome scheduling tools you forget that Instagram is a 2-way street.

March 16, 2018/by Caitlin McDonald

Instagram, Membership Only, Social Media, Video

How to convert your Instagram into a Business account

If you have set up an Instagram account and have not yet converted it over to a business account, don’t wait any longer! You are missing out on a TON of data! There are not a lot of differences between your personal Instagram and Business Instagram as far as looks go, BUT the key to the business Instagram is that you get to really know who your audience is. The insights of your business account will really let you know who is engaging with your brand. It will tell you age, gender, location and more!

By switching to a business account you will have the ability to:
* Run ads and promotions
* Link to your Facebook business page, Twitter, and Tumblr accounts
* View Insights

March 9, 2018/by Amber Irwin

Growth Prompts, Instagram, Membership Only, Social Media

Instagram: An Introduction to Instagram for your Business (Plus Download)

Who doesn’t love Instagram?

Beautiful images, user friendly, frequently updated, but is it something you can actually use for your business?

YES!

Instagram is a power marketing tool that can transform your ability to connect with your market online. It is the platform where you can showcase your personality, but also connect with other businesses and consumers on a professional level.

In the past, I used to tell businesses that if they needed to cut one network from their marketing, it should be Instagram. Now it is one of the first networks I recommend. Whereas we used to never see traffic from Instagram, businesses are now being flooded with clicks from their profiles. Additionally, Instagram is now the network where businesses are seeing the most engagement. If increasing engagement and brand recognition is one of your goals for social media, how could you not have your businesses account already set up?

Below I’ve put together some steps for you to ensure a successful Instagram strategy for your business.

Step 1: Convert your Instagram Account to a Business Account

As a business account you have access to analytics and you can also share content directly to a Facebook Business Page rather than only your personal profile. You also gain the ability to add Click to Call button or other buttons in your profile.

Some highlights of the Instagram Analytics include:

Profile Views
Top Posts
Engagement Metrics

The steps to make this change are straight forward. Click to edit your profile settings and click the option called “Switch to Business Profile.” From here you are all set to get rocking and rolling with Instagram for business marketing.

Step 2: Have a Game-plan and Stick to It

We recently were working with a business that had just created its Instagram account and after a month they were ready to give up. Growing your network on Instagram takes time, just like any other social media network. However, it does grow fairly quickly!

This client was upset they were only at 90 followers in 20 days, and I explained to them that the strategy we followed of “following your complementary businesses followers” took time. Sure enough, a month later the business was up to 400 followers.

Having a game-plan is more than just how to grow your network. You also need to create a game-plan for the types of posts you are going to be publishing. I find it easiest to create a calendar of must-post items and then filling in the rest with consistent topics.

If you are a chef, you can consistently share recipes, if you support a cause, you can consistently post about the cause. Just make sure if you post 3 times per day for a week that you then don’t jump to posting only once per week as your followers will forget you even existed.

This brings us to this week’s Action Item!

What topics can you post about on Instagram? Please download this sheet of 100 Instagram post topics you can integrate into your Instagram strategy!

Download List Here

Step 3: Align your Images with your Brand

As you are posting images, you want to make sure they have a similar look, feel, and tone. You don’t always have to include your brand colors, but if you do use fonts on images or color blocks, make sure they are aligned with the content viewers will see elsewhere.

To keep your images consistent, try to use only a few filters on instagram. These filters will help make images appear as though they were shot in the same light and will help to increase brand recognition.

Additionally, you can use apps like Canva to create templates for your images. This way any image that has a text overlay uses the same colors and fonts.

Step 4: Include a Call to Action in your Bio

Rather than just saying what your business is about on your Instagram bio, also add a call to action. We love using Linktr.ee in our profiles to add a menu of links that people can click to learn more.

A non-profit, or example, could add links to their programs, donate pages, and events on Linktr.ee whereas an ecommerce store could use the space to highlight specific products, blog posts, and sales.

This functionality can greatly increase the effectiveness of your Instagram Marketing.

Step 5: Gain Exposure with Hashtags

Make sure that as you are writing your post you are also using hashtags.

We use Hashtagify.me to search for related hashtags and often have a database of hashtags for different types of posts that we can copy and paste.

Also, look out for banned hashtags. Instagram does a great job penalizing accounts that are using derogatory hashtags, however sometimes these are legitimate for businesses to actually use. Let’s say you are a dog walker, #dogsofinstagram may seem like an appropriate hashtag. Unfortunately, because of other connotations, it is on the banned keyword list!

Good luck and have fun on Instagram! Showcase a behind the scenes look at your business and try to fully connect with your followers!

Other resources:

Using Trello to Manage Instagram

Canva to Create Images

Engaging Posts on Instagram

March 6, 2018/by Caitlin McDonald

Apps, Business Resource, Instagram, Membership Only, Social Media, Tutorials

Using Trello to Manage Instagram Marketing

Working your Instagram strategy can be timely and overwhelming for most business owners. This download covers our tested process to easily write Instagram Posts and Share them to Instagram.

Our team uses this strategy to manage hundreds of Instagram posts per month and it will truly transform your ability create a successful Instagram Community.

Apps We Use:

Trello – Trello.com
Canva – Canva.com
Instagram

The Normal Process for Instagram Management:

The typically process followed for businesses managing Instagram goes like this:

Take photo on phone or email image from computer to yourself to save to phone
Open Instagram and find image that was saved to photo roll
Adjust filters
Add description
Think of potential Hashtags you could use, have spelling autocorrect turn hashtags into 2+ words, give up after 2-3 hashtags have been added
Forget to add a location
Click post and start randomly following people
30 minutes later realize you are still on Instagram and running late for a meeting

The purpose of establishing a process for managing social media is to ensure that you can actually spend your energy on the core aspects of your business.

What you Should be Doing for Instagram Management

Rather than trying to type and create Instagram posts on your phone, we recommend pre-writing and creating posts utilizing apps and tools to make the process easier and more streamlined.

It all starts on Trello.

You can download the Entire Guide as a PDF Here.

December 8, 2017/by Caitlin McDonald

Blogging, Instagram, SEO, Social Media

Cost-Effective Ways to Market Your Local Business Online

Decades ago, small businesses only had a few ways to market their business. They would sponsor local events, put up bill boards or print out fliers. In today’s digital era, there are several marketing opportunities out there on the web.

The internet is teeming with marketing platforms. The good news is that you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on marketing. You just need to know where to look.

Listed below are 4 cost-effective ways to market your local business online. Use these tips to raise awareness of your products and business.

Get social

With the ever-prevading power of social media, you can easily reach a wide audience from across the globe. This can be done with just a few clicks of a button. But in order to make the most of your social media campaign, you need to build your fan base and target audience in your specific niche.

Determine which social media platform your target audience use the most, and build a strong presence there. Be active and engage with your audience. Make meaningful conversations with your fans and followers. Provide useful and relevant information. Offer advice and support. This will help you build your reputation and establish yourself as an expert in your field.

Get listed in local business sites

Before, people would look up businesses in Yellow Pages. Today, however, people will just bring out their smartphones and will find what they’re looking for in a matter of seconds. As such, it is important to have your business listed in multiple online directories. This will make it easier for potential customers to find you and increase traffic to your website.

USdirectory.com, Yellowbook, EZ Local,Yelp, and Google My Business are just some of the free listing sites your business should be on. Don’t forget to include your business name, address, phone number, email address, and website on the listing.

Have your business listed on online review sites

Local business reviews get higher rankings in search engine results. Encourage people to post authentic reviews based on their experiences with your company.

Take time to create a good listing. TripAdvisor is a great site if you’re in a travel-related field. If you’re selling services, why not list on Angie’s List? These sites give you the opportunity to reach an enormous audience of potential customers who are looking for products or services in your industry. Reading through reviews from past customers will be beneficial for consumers who are looking to make informed purchase decisions.

Create a blog

One of the best ways to promote your business online is by creating a blog. Posting high quality content on a regular basis will do wonders for your SEO efforts. It will help drive traffic to your site, develop better relationship with your target audience, and position yourself as an industry leader. It may take a while before you see results, but all your efforts will be worth it in the end.

November 16, 2017/by Caitlin McDonald

Instagram, Membership Only

5 Top Engaging Posts for Instagram

Today we are going to talk about Instagram! What posts get the BEST engagement??? Instagram is one of the fastest growing networks out there and a place where people LOVE to engage! A lot of our clients see more interaction on Instagram than Facebook or Twitter. I wanted to share our Top 5 posts and how to do them. Enjoy!

1) Behind the Scenes

Bring your audience behind the scenes of what you do! You can post fun or funny pictures, short videos or even better Instagram stories!

Instagram Stories can give your followers and customers more insight into who you are as a person and as a business. Go live at an event you are at or attending!

2) Play with your content

Have a palette of different content to share. Create custom images using Canva, Create fun short videos with Ripl, try out different story ideas, since stories only stay on Instagram for 24 hours you can get a good idea of what really gets engagement.

3) Get PERSONAL

It’s time to bring out the family pictures and your personality! People love when you talk about your interest. Be authentic, be able to capture who you are and what your core values are. Think of the WHY, why you are selling these products, offering this service, running your own business, what’s your story behind YOU??? Then get out there are ask your customers and clients for video testimonials, maybe what’s their WHY, why do they love you, why do they love your products, WHO are they as a person? Get creative and have fun!

4) Active listening

Remember your customers want to feel valued, they want to feel loved, so incorporate them into your planning. Ask them questions like “Do you like this color or this color?” “Would you prefer to have this one or this one?” Create polls that they can comment on, ask them to submit ideas or suggestions. People LOVE to be apart of something and LOVE to give their opinion. Then you can @mention them and thank them for their input!

5) Be organized

Utilize Pinterest boards for ideas, create a holiday board, quotes board, etc. You can also create a Google Drive folder or Dropbox folder to start stashing away pictures. These pictures can be from Pixabay, Pexels or even your own photos (which are the best), Once you have your images made you can keep your Instagram posts organized with Trello. Trello is an FREE tool that you can create streams or cards of your Instagram posts, then you can copy the text straight from there and post to Instagram!

Remember:

Think of industry leaders and repost and comment on their stuff
Create a branded hashtag for your holiday campaign.

If you need help with your Instagram Marketing Strategy, we are here to help!

November 7, 2017/by Amber Irwin

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