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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 admin

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 admin

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

Instagram

Tips for Running a Successful Instagram Giveaway

Contests and giveaways have been around for a long time. But with the growth of social media, they have taken on a new life.

People love getting free stuff. It captures people’s attention. This is why most businesses run contests and giveaways on social media. When run effectively, it can help liven up your community, gain product exposure, generate leads, and grow your network.

Adding Instagram giveaways to your social media marketing campaign can help expand your reach and give your business a boost in terms of awareness. Here are some tips for running a successful Instagram giveaway.

Determine the type of contest

As compared to other social media platforms, Instagram doesn’t have that much promotion limitations. So if you are considering running an Instagram giveaway, you have the option to choose whether you want a photo challenge contest, a comment contest or a like contest.

With the photo challenge, you can ask users to upload their photos on Instagram. To enter, they’ll need to post using a specific hashtag. For the comment contest, users will just have to comment on your post to enter. This is great if your goal is to increase engagement or gain feedback from your audience. Last is the like contest. Here, all you need to do is to ask your followers to like your photo. This is the easiest contest to hold and will surely help boost your engagement.

Choose a deadline

Decide how short or how long you want the contest to run. The key here is to choose an appropriate length of time. If it’s too short, then people may not have enough time to enter. If it’s too long, people may forget about it.

You also need to consider your goal when choosing a deadline. A short giveaway time is ideal if you just want to have fun and give out something to you audience. A longer time is needed if you are planning to give out something valuable. This will capture the interest of your audience and will give you enough time for promotion.

Write the rules

Now that everything has been planned, it’s time to share the rules to the public. Make sure that the rules are easy to read and understand. Otherwise, people may not be interested to enter. Or worse, people may get confused.

Choose a relevant prize

The goal of this contest is to capture the attention of your target audience, not just any audience. As such, it is important to choose a prize that is valuable to them. We also recommend choosing a price that is relevant to your business.

Interested in learning more about Instagram Marketing for your business? Take a look at our Free Guide on writing the perfect Instagram caption!

FREE PRINTABLE

November 1, 2017/by admin

Instagram, Social Media

Which Social Media Channels Fit Your Target Audience [PLUS Tips for Writing the Perfect Instagram Caption]

You may have amazing products and provide great services. You also spend time creating good quality content. No matter how engaging or persuasive your content is, you won’t be able to achieve great results unless it reaches your target audience.

Most business use social media to engage with their fans and followers and even build a relationship with them. Considering there are several social media channels out there, do you ever wonder if you’re reaching the right audience?

Which social media channels fit your target audience? Keep reading to find out.

Twitter

Twitter makes use of hashtags that allows businesses to target people who are talking about and engaging with topics related to their business. This social media platform is ideal for sharing real time information, timely trends or live events, and will result in high levels share and engagement.

Use this social networking platform if your target audience is young adults. 24% of internet users log in on their Twitter account on a daily basis. Younger, more educated crowds aged 18 to 29 uses Twitter. 29% of college grads use Twitter and lots of it.

Facebook

Facebook is the biggest socal networking channel, with over 1.86 billion monthly users. Yes, Facebook is crowded, but it gives you the ability to narrow down that 1.86 billion users by gender, age, location, interests, marital status, employment, and income; thus, making it easier for you to reach the right audience.

Majority of the entire adult population is on Facebook. In fact, 88% of milennials and 62% of adults aged 65 and up use Facebook. As such, this would be a great place to start with your social media campaign.

Instagram

Instagram is geared towards younger millennial users. A hefty 38% of female internet users use Instagram. To make the most out of your social media campaign, make sure that you provide attention grabbing photos and high quality videos to your audience. Remember, content is king on Instagram.

LinkedIn

People tend to use LinkedIn for interacting with clients, influencers and other professionals. This is a great option for business whose products or services are highly specific to professionals. It is also ideal for B2B marketers.

Just like Facebook, LinkedIn allows you to target users based on gender, location and age. In addition, it also allows you to filter based on field of study, company industry, company size, degrees, job title etc.

So let’s say you find Instagram to be the way to market your business…

Tips for Writing the Perfect Instagram Caption

Instagram may be all about compelling visuals. When it comes to gaining followers, the quality of your photos will be the differentiating factor. But if you want to capture the attention of your target audience, you need the perfect Instagram captions. It can be the key to having your posts seen by more people. This will improve engagement and lead to more likes and comments. Plus, it will help you build a strong online presence.

Here are some tips for writing the perfect Instagram caption.

FREE PRINTABLE

Use a consistent brand voice

Brand voice is one of the most important parts of any good Instagram caption. If you are a small business owner, who is looking to engage with your audience on Instagram, we recommend that you develop a brand voice and use it on all your posts. Practice consistency. Your Instagram caption should sound and feel like the rest of your marketing channels.

Use hashtags

Hashtags aren’t mandatory in your Instagram captions, but they do help. They provide an effective way of connecting with your followers, gain more Instagram followers and even build a relationship with them. Proper use of hashtags will make your posts more effective.

Think outside the box when adding hashtags. Instead of just saving the hashtags for the end, try incorporating them into the body of your caption. Also, use relevant hashtags to boost your engagement and get new eyes on your Instagram content.

Consider length

Although Instagram have a caption character limit of 2,200 characters, followers will have the option to “view more” for longer captions. You should stay within 125 characters to ensure that your entire caption will display in your follower’s feeds with the image. Make sure that every word is integral to the message you’re trying to convey.

For longer tweets, make sure that the most important part of your message is at the beginning of the caption.

For longer posts, make sure the most important part of your message is at the beginning of the caption. #InstagramClick To Tweet

Always include a call-to-action

Your captions are a great way to inspire people to engage with your business. As such, we highly recommend that you include a call-to-action to your Instagram caption. You can encourage them to comment, answer questions, use your hashtags, click the link in your bio etc. Your followers will be happy to engage with your business, you just need to prompt them to do something. Inviting them to like or comment can go a long way towards driving more engagement to your posts.

September 6, 2017/by admin

Facebook, Hashtag Marketing, Instagram, Social Media

Tips for Writing Better Social Media Posts

Most businesses use social media to promote their products and services and build a relationship with their target audience. What you share on social media can have an impact on your online marketing results, but knowing how to properly write content that your audience will love and share will help elevate your social media game.

Now, it’s time to get writing. Implement these tips when writing social media content to help boost engagement and make your posts stand out from the rest.

Use high quality photos

Make the most out of every post by adding an eye-catching photo to it. Studies suggest that social media posts with photos get an 87% interaction rate from users. Remember, the more likes, comments and shares you have on a post, the greater the reach. Make sure that the photo you’re using is compatible with your content. Use different types of photos and messages to see which ones your audience responds to.

Craft share-worthy posts

According to studies, 1.3 million pieces of content are posted on social media every minute. Because of this, social media posts have very short lifespan. Unless your content is interesting enough, these posts won’t be seen by your followers.

Create posts that are worth passing along. You already know who your target audience is and what topics they are interested in. The most share-worthy posts usually fall under these categories – entertainment, assistance, analysis, and information.

Use as few words as possible

Writing social media post is a lot harder than it looks. This is especially true in social media platforms like Twitter, since you’re only allowed to use 140 characters. But did you know that Tweets with 70 to 100 characters get the most retweets?

Although Facebook has a limit of 477 characters before it will show “read more” or “see more”, experts suggest writing shorter posts. In fact, they believe that 40 is the magic number to keep in mind when creating Facebook posts. 40 characters is not much at all, but these posts receive 86% higher engagement than others. That said, you need to choose your words wisely. Make every word count.

June 11, 2017/by admin

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