Social Media

Is Instagram turning into TikTok?

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Since the introduction of Stories a few years ago, Instagram has made it clear that video is a genuine part of its path toward social media platform domination (RIP Snapchat and any platform that gets in the way of Meta). With Instagram testing a full-screen display, they have doubled down on video by putting Reels in the main feed. (Update: As of 7/26/22 – Instagram is halting testing of a full-screen feed – check out their video update here.)

For businesses, content creators, and social media strategists who use Instagram as a marketing tool, does this mean Instagram is turning into TikTok? No, not quite yet. But, if video is not already a part of your content mix, it’s time to get in the game because video is NOT going anywhere.

Can I still include static posts in my content strategy?

Yes, for now. While Reels receive higher engagement than static posts, Carousel posts perform better than traditional video or individual graphic/photo posts. So, there is still an opportunity to include static posts in your mix. 

Is all-video inevitable?

Yes, I think it is a genuine possibility that Meta will phase out static posts on Instagram in the future. I find it sad because Instagram has developed a real niche in the social media game in the last ten years, being image-based. When looking at market share, Meta has taken the path of destroying or purchasing any platform that gets in its way versus trying to carve its niche. Again, look at the Stories vs. Snapchat, their acquisitions of GIPHY, What’s App, and Instagram, among many others.

What can I do to integrate more Reels into my content strategy?

While most people think they have to be on camera for Reels posts, there are plenty of workarounds to satisfy the Reels beast. 

  1. GIFS and Memes – GIFS and memes have become quite popular over the last year with Millennials and Gen X in feed posts, but with a simple change to your graphic size and music, you can turn these into Reels. Another trick, add a video background behind your GIF or meme image for a more dynamic Reel.
  2. Text to caption – Instead of just writing out your post, record a voice memo and add it as original audio. With Instagram adding captions to Reels, you can include dynamic text and be accessibility-friendly.
  3. Show product – For product-based businesses, you have it a little easier because a product can substitute for a face. 
  4. Find a face for your company – if you hate to be on camera, find a staff member or influencer to speak on behalf of the company. 

If I’m on Reels, do I need to be on TikTok?

Maybe, that depends on who you are trying to reach. Each platform draws in different demographics, so look at your ideal client and figure out if they are regularly engaging on one or both platforms. If you have the time to upload to both platforms, go ahead and do so. However, keep in mind that Instagram is very anti-TikTok and will deprioritize your content if the TikTok watermark is visible on your Reel. How can you work around this? First, pre-record your video and have it ready to upload to both platforms. Then, upload to each platform with the same music. To speed up the process more, use an app like Canva or Temply to add text beforehand, so you don’t have to add it within the platform. 

The world of social media continues to get more complicated, so we can’t blame you for not wanting to deal with it in your business. If you’re looking for a partner to come alongside you to guide and/or implement a video strategy for you, contact us today. We would love to help you create social content that converts your audience into customers.

Digital Marketing Best Practices

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How often should I be posting?
What platforms should I be on?
What type of content should I be creating?
Do I even need a website?

The struggle is REAL!
So, we put together some digital marketing best practices to help guide your efforts.

 1. Pick a frequency and stick to it.

No matter what type of digital content you are creating, we recommend starting slow and increasing the frequency only when you can dedicate the time to produce quality content consistently or afford to bring in help. Digital content is an easy way to demonstrate your expertise and provide value to your audience. And while some may argue that you need to pump out content EVERY SINGLE DAY to increase your metrics, pick a cadence that you can keep up with. A less frequent schedule may allow you to create more meaningful content and lessen the likelihood of burnout.

 2. Check your analytics.

Not sure your digital marketing efforts are effective?

For Email Marketing:
Take a peek at your opt-in, open, and conversion rates to see how your campaign resonates with your audience. If stats are low, take a step back and examine your opt-in and emails. Try A/B testing subject lines for a higher open rate. Provide more compelling calls-to-action to drive clicks. Figure out what isn’t resonating!

For Your Website:
Install Google Analytics and Hotjar. See how the audience navigates your site. For example, are they making it to your contact or scheduling page? How long are they on the site before they leave? Examine your copy and buttons. Are you guiding people where they need to go to work with you?

For Social Media:
Are there types of content that do better than others? Check to see which posts get the most engagement, saves, and shares. If your posts aren’t generating significant stats, examine your content strategy. Are you targeting the right audience? Are you creating the type of content they want to see? Are you on the platforms they are on?

3. Repurpose content.

We are all for working smarter, not harder. Try recycling the information! If you create a lead generator for your email funnel, break the content into smaller pieces for social media and blog posts. Not only will you get the most out of your larger content piece, but it will also give your audience a taste of what they can expect when they opt-in. Be sure to use those posts (social and blog) to direct people to your sign-up form. Tip: When you’re ready to swap out your lead generator, don’t scrap it altogether. Instead, move it to a resources page, so you have evergreen content ready to go! 

Does all of this digital marketing talk make your head spin?

If you are ready to take your marketing to the next level, without the headache of managing it yourself, schedule a free consultation. We can discuss your needs and put together a custom plan that saves you time and stress a plan built on expertise and strategy.

How to Create Saveable and Shareable Content on Instagram

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Whoever said saves are the new likes was totally on point.

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With Instagram now testing the removal of public likes, the rules of engagement (and the algorithm) have changed. Saves and shares have now come first to likes and comments, which means brands now have to put more focus on creating content that resonates with their audience enough to click that magic “save” button or share with others to stay relevant on the platform. So, where do you begin? Keep reading!

Whether your business provides a service(s), sells a product(s), or a little bit of both, the first step is to remember that Instagram, as with all digital marketing, is a tool to create leads, inquiries, and sales. So remember to create content that is in line with your brand voice, personality, and messaging so your audience knows what to expect if they choose to purchase from you.

The second step to creating saveable and shareable content is to really understand your audience. What are they looking to achieve by following you? What are their pain points? How can you help them from behind your screen?

Once you’ve answered those questions, you’re ready to start crafting. To help get you started, we’ve outlined types of posts and examples of each that we’ve found to be popular so you can start creating content that will truly resonate with your audience and keep them wanting more.

Tips

Tips are a great way to educate your audience with information or resources in a quick, snackable format. For example, our target audience includes potential clients and entrepreneurs as well as other marketing agencies, so our tips range from branding guidance (e.g. “Logo Variations You Need”) to resources that make life easier for other businesses (e.g. “Otter.ai”).

 FAQs

Whether you receive certain questions often or understand your audience enough to know what they might be struggling with, answering frequently asked questions (FAQs) will help address your audience’s pain points and add value either in the moment or down the road. For example, we understand that our audience is often overwhelmed by all the website platforms available to them, so we addressed potential clients and DIY-ers by guiding them through the different website platforms with our “How do I select the right website platform?” post.

 Checklists

Who doesn’t love checking something off of a list? Regardless of your industry, a simple checklist graphic can go a long way and is an easy post for audiences to save and come back to later. Checklists provide your audience with a tangible set of items to accomplish and empower them to take action . Our “Brand Assessment Checklist provides value to those who are just starting out and more established brands who might need to reevaluate a few things. Two birds with one stone!

Tutorials

“How to” videos and tutorials help to educate your audience on your products and show them in use. They are also a great way to utilize Instagram’s most popular feature – Reels! For product-based businesses, tutorials are also a useful sales tactic. For example, a clothing store could create “How to” videos about the different ways to style specific pieces they sell. Not only are you promoting your product(s) in the moment, but you’re also creating a valuable source of information customers can return to after they’ve purchased your product.

While these are different types of posts that we’ve found to be popular, a sure way to know what your audience wants to learn is to ask! This can be as simple as a post or story asking for their input. But if you’re still a little hesitant on how to create more value for your audience – let’s chat! Book your free social media consultation today.

3 Benefits to Outsourcing Your Social Media

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With platforms changing constantly and new trends popping up all the time, social media can be a headache for business owners. 

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Social media is a great addition to just about every digital marketing strategy. With its free entry and wide reach, you would be crazy not to take advantage of at least one platform. But as a business owner, it’s hard to find the time to create meaningful content, schedule it, and engage with followers. So how do you maintain a social media presence while doing everything else on your plate? Outsource!

Benefits of Outsourcing Your Social Media

1. More Time, Less Stress

Have you ever stressed over picking out the perfect photo and caption only to look at the clock and realize it took you two hours to create that one post?

Your time and sanity are valuable! Why waste them on something that isn’t creating revenue for your business? An outside social media team will craft content that resonates with your audience and execute it, while you work on other areas of your business. You get back all those hours in a day and your bulging blood veins can take a rest.

2. Expertise

Feel like a jack of all trades, but master of none? Stop Googling “how-to” videos and test-driving every platform out there to see what works. Let the experts handle it!

Social Media professionals know each platform inside and out. They can decide which one(s) are best for getting in front of your audience and increasing your brand awareness. 

They stay abreast of new trends and features to advise you on which to adopt and which to sit out. (Ahem, just forget about the “Buss it” challenge.)

Finally, they know how to to optimize content to help you reach your goals. Like knowing which hashtags are right for a particular post, what time of day it should go out, and what needs to change if posting it from one platform to another.

3. Strategy

If we had a dollar for every person who says they have a friend who runs a successful TikTok and can manage their business account… well, let’s just say we’d all be getting big raises

Building a brand and marketing your business requires strategy.

A strategic social media professional develops a multi-faceted content plan based on your audience, industry, competitors, and goals. They understand that while a sale may be the end-goal, it takes building the “like, know, trust” factor to lead your audience there. This type of strategist isn’t afraid to test and measure content to determine if it’s a fit, and make tweaks where necessary.

Ready to hand over the reigns to your social and focus on growing your business?

If you are ready to take your social media marketing to the next level, without the headache of managing it yourself, schedule a free consultation. We can discuss your needs and put together a custom plan that saves you time and stress a plan built on expertise and strategy.

How to Repurpose Content

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Tired of spending all your time creating content? We’ve got the answer!

One area that many of our clients get frustrated with is content creation. You spend a bunch of time working on new, original content for EVERY SINGLE CHANNEL, to find out nobody’s reading. It’s a whole lot of work for little return, right?

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So how can you work smarter, not harder? By repurposing your content!

Why Should You Repurpose Content?

We would love for our audience to read every blog post, double-tap on our Instagram photos, and feverishly check their inbox for our newsletter. But life moves quickly—we scroll aimlessly, avoid reading anything more than 140 characters, and unsubscribe as promptly as we signup. So why do we keep creating different content for each marketing channel?

By repurposing content, you can reach more people in less time so that you can get back to the revenue-generating tasks on your to-do list.

How to Start Repurposing Content

1. Identity your topic.

Look to your customer’s pain points or look at past content you’ve created to see what has been most popular.

 2. Identify where you want to distribute content.

You don’t have to be everywhere; research how your audience consumes content and where they are consuming it. Focus on those channels and platforms!

 3. Break down your content for each channel.

Let’s look at some of the channels available to you. 

Blog Post
This is perhaps the best place to start. A blog post allows you to get all of your thoughts out, which you can then piece out and use elsewhere. Other channels require brevity—nobody is going to read a social media caption that reads like a novel. Use your blog as an opportunity to educate your audience more thoroughly.

Social Media
Now that you have your blog post take some of the information and break it up into several posts. We like to look at things in 30-day blocks. You can create 2-3 social posts with snippets of content from one blog post and distribute them throughout the month. This extends your post’s shelf life and provides multiple opportunities for people to click back to your website and read more.

Newsletter
Let’s say tomorrow Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter all went away—would you be able to connect with all of those followers? Probably not. A newsletter allows you to engage outside of social media, and best of all, YOU own your email list.

Need email addresses to add to your list? Try offering a freemium (which we’ll discuss more below) that requires an email to receive or directly ask your customers if you can add them to your list.

Next, decide on a cadence in which you will send out your newsletter. Once or twice a month is usually an excellent place to start. From there, gather content. Link that blog post and pull a couple of your best social posts—BAM! You have a newsletter.

Freemium
Collecting email addresses may seem daunting, but a freemium (free PDF download) provides you an opportunity to give your audience something “free” while showcasing your expertise. Win-win. Take your blog post and see if there is an opportunity to modify it into a checklist or share a list of resources that enhances the information you already provided.

Video
Studies show nothing in marketing is more engaging than video—these days, video is within all of our reaches. From Instagram Reels to TikTok, you can re-share your content in 30 seconds with just a few DIY phone clips and some words.

Ads
Ideally, content always connects back to a service or product. Reuse the copy you’ve already written to create an ad on Google or social media.

Podcast
If you’re a podcaster, let your blog post serve as a topic of an upcoming episode. A lot of people are more willing to listen than read.

Other Ways to Repurpose Content

Try refreshing a piece of content after some time. It may still be good material, but things change. One of our most popular posts is “Five Tools I Use In My Business,” originally written in 2016 and updated in 2018. I guess it’s time to update it again!

Offer to be a guest blogger or podcast guest. By repurposing information you have already shared, you can get in front of an all-new audience that may be wider than your own. 

There are many ways to repurpose content that we haven’t even covered, but that’s ok. Our goal was to show you that you don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel with every piece of content you create. Instead, look for opportunities to maximize what you’ve already have. Then sit back and enjoy the time and aggravation you’ve saved!

Pinterest: The New Google

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Where should you be looking for branding inspiration?  Stop making life harder than it has to be and introduce Pinterest into your brand discovery process. 

You’ve decided your brand needs a new look, and you’ve contacted a designer for help…now what? What happens when you know your brand needs transformation, but you’re lacking inspiration?

Enter: Pinterest. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Pinterest is a social network that allows users to search for various themes and discover new images for all sorts of inspiration. Since 2010, Pinterest has given users an online place to “pin,” or save, these pictures for later. From event planning to interior design and everything in between, Pinterest has a place in every industry – including ours!
We love Pinterest because it’s collaborative, user-friendly, and, of course, inspirational. You should love Pinterest because it simplifies your branding process and guides you through the discovery of what you love.

Here at BBN, we encourage our clients to use Pinterest in the early stages of their branding process to gain direction. Rather than scouring Google for an overwhelming array of unrelated images, we point people to Pinterest for a more carefully curated selection.

Pinterest also has the upper hand for brand inspiration because of its “more like this” feature. Once you pin one image that you connect with, you can scroll down to access a seemingly never-ending supply of similar images. Say goodbye to Google’s distractions and hello to the limitless (p)inspiration available on another platform.

Our clients search Pinterest for color palettes, logos, fonts, patterns, interiors – any image that reflects their desired brand aesthetic. As the images are collected on a Pinterest “board,” we begin looking for repeating themes. We narrow your selections into a cohesive direction by placing them into a mood board (you can search for these on Pinterest too!).

Wherever you’re at in your branding process, Pinterest is here to help. We hope Pinterest is the tool that gets you out of your branding rut and ready to unlock the best version of your business! 

Follow us on Pinterest here!

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