Tag: social media management

Categories
Social Media

Instagram Guides Now Available to All Users

In May, most of the country was used to the idea of working from home, with the understanding that this isolation would be indefinite. Instagram used this to launch its Guides feature, focusing on mental health.

Initially, Guides were only available to certain content creators, organizations, publishers, and public figures. It allowed those accounts to create curated collections of content, using their own profile as well as the profiles of other Instagram users.

Earlier this month, Instagram announced they’ve expanded the Guides feature to all users.

What is Instagram Guides?

According to a press release, “After Guides were first introduced in May, Instagram saw strong community response and requests for increased availability. Guides provide another way for the community to connect with their favorite accounts, discover new products from people they may not already follow, and get inspired by what content people are loving on Instagram.”

Guides, as a concept, was intended to target travel content. However, because of the pandemic, leaving the country isn’t allowed. Instagram pivoted the direction to promote self-care tips and suicide hotlines. As Black Lives Matter protests started unfolding across the country, Instagram Guides began to include an array of resources for the black community.

The goal is to provide users with another way to post longer-form content going beyond photo and video. Not only can creators dive deeper, but they can also create a multimedia experience to engage and expand their audiences. Guide creators are able to include their own tips and commentary alongside the content they curate.

The expansion tells us though, Instagram is focusing on keeping users on its platform, rather than directing traffic to content creators’ blogs or websites.

Types of Instagram Guides

Back in August, TechCrunch reported changes to Instagram Guides. Users can choose between:

  • Places Guide: This guide recommends a person’s favorite places.
  • Products Guide: A guide for recommending your favorite products to others.
  • Posts Guide: A guide showcasing a variety of posts on a similar topic.

Right now it seems most people are using the Posts guide type. They make a great way to show step-by-step processes, so they are wonderful for recipes, DIY projects, crafts, etc.

Where Guides Display on Profiles

At this point, Guides are currently featured prominently on account pages. They are generally placed between IGTV and Tagged Photos. They may also be featured in the Instagram Shop. The Instagram Shop is another new feature within the app that connects creators with new customers.

By linking guides to shopping, there is plenty of space for brands and influencers to build style Guides. Linking these guides to their IG shops may help boost sales during the pandemic recession.

When visiting another person’s profile, you’ll see a Guides icon on the feed tab that will take you to all the guides they have published.

How to Create an Instagram Guide

  • Tap the + icon on the top-right corner of your profile page. Select “Guide.”
  • Choose your guide type.
    • If you choose Posts, you’ll recommend posts that you’ve either created or saved in the past.
    • If you choose Products, you’ll only be able to curate products available from an Instagram Shop.
    • If you choose Places, you’ll be able to share location-based recommendations, such as a city guide or restaurant.

After you create your Guide, you can share it to Instagram Stories, or share it with other uses. Tap the paper plane icon at the top right of your screen.

Are you excited to see what you can do with this new feature? I’d love to hear your thoughts and see your guides in the comments below.

Categories
Social Media

How to Optimize Your Twitter Profile for Your Business or Brand

To optimize your Twitter profile for your business or brand, start with a professional, brand-aligned profile picture and cover image. Craft a concise, impactful bio that clearly conveys your brand identity and includes relevant keywords. Utilize pinned tweets to highlight key messages or campaigns. Regularly post engaging content and interact with your audience to build a consistent, active presence that reflects your brand’s values and mission.

Are you looking to enhance your brand’s presence on Twitter?

In this article, you will discover how to optimize your Twitter profile for your business, unlocking the full potential of this powerful platform.

Imagine your Twitter profile transformed into an engaging, brand-reflective powerhouse, drawing in followers and amplifying your message.

Dive in now to learn the key strategies for making your Twitter profile a beacon for your brand!

How to Optimize Your Twitter Profile for Your Business or Brand

More than 330 million people use Twitter every month, and more than 350,000 tweets are posted every single minute. There’s no doubt that potential clients and customers are there, and if they are, your business should be, too.

But beyond your potential clients and customers, there are others you should be looking for and paying attention to on Twitter, as well. It’s also a place where influencers, bloggers, and journalists are looking for fans, brands, and company stories. When they look for something in your industry or vertical, you want to make sure your business shows up.

Don’t forget about the passionate customers who go to Twitter to voice their concerns, complaints, and opinions. If conversations about your brand are taking place, you want to monitor them, participate, and steer them in the right direction. Social listening tools make it possible to keep an eye out for mentions of your business whether or not you’re tagged in the tweets.

The first step to succeeding at Twitter is creating the right kind of profile.

1. Pay Attention to Your Twitter Bio

You have 160 characters to wow your potential audience with. You need to use relevant keywords and hashtags. However, if you choose to use hashtags they will be clickable and may distract from your bio. If someone does click through to the hashtag make sure you’re not inadvertently driving them to your competition if you’re using an industry hashtag.

2. Include a Header Image

The Twitter profile header image can be likened to a magazine cover. You want to change it on a regular basis and use the space to showcase your brand. It’s much larger than your profile image – with the recommended size being 1500×1500 pixels, so you can do a lot more with it. No matter what you choose to do, however, make sure it coordinates with your profile image for better aesthetics.

You can use your header image to feature:

  • New products
  • Top-selling products and services
  • Book launch
  • A team photo
  • Your store or office
  • Your business at a trade show
  • A special event

Regardless of the photo you choose, optimize all of your images by saving the image filename with branded keywords. This increases your chances of being found in an image search.

3. Carefully Select Your Profile Image

Your business or brand needs to use a version of its logo that is easy to recognize and represent your brand. If your logo features a lot of text or doesn’t show up well in the small square of your profile image, you may want to consider creating a secondary logo to use with Twitter and other social media profiles you.

As you determine whether or not you need to create a separate logo, you need to consider image size, color, and how it will look from a mobile device. the recommended file size is 400 by 400 pixels. Twitter supports JPEG, GIF, and PNG file formats up to 2 megabytes in size.

4. Drive People to Your Website

You can use the link space in your bio to drive people directly to your home page, but you can do more than that. Consider sending Twitter followers to some specific pages on your website instead of the basic homepage. Because Twitter is often used to store stories, You may wish to consider linking to your blog or company newsroom. As an alternative, you can point your followers to download a free ebook or checklist, subscribe to your email list, or sign up for a webinar.

5. Add a location to Your Profile

If you are a local business, make sure to fill out the location part of your Twitter profile. This allows Twitter’s algorithm to match your content with other locally-based audiences so your content gets in front of the right people. If you’re not a local business, you can still enter the location of your corporate office, or, you can opt to skip it altogether.

6. Make Sure You Have a Public Profile

Take a second to make sure your tweets are public. Within your settings, look at the privacy and safety section. Make sure the box next to tweet privacy is unchecked. If you do not have public tweets, your business or brand will not get discovered.

7. Pin a Tweet to Your Profile

If you equate your Twitter cover image to a magazine cover, the pinned tweet is your featured story. Pinning a tweet to the top of your profile is an option that many people tend to skip but it is valuable in terms of optimizing your profile. It gives you a space to showcase content.

Of course, this means thinking strategically when pinning tweets. Include a strong visual with a clear call-to-action and relevant keywords along with strategic hashtags and a link back to your website or blog for more detailed information.

New users landing on your profile will see the pinned tweet as the first thing in your Twitter stream, so you wanted to make a good impression. Like your cover image, you can change it up regularly to draw attention to whatever you need to promote.

8. Make it Easy for People to Direct Message You

To optimize your accessibility and make your brand more approachable on Twitter, remove the privacy from your direct messages. In the settings area, head to “Privacy and Safety.” Scroll down the page and look for the direct message option. Check “Receive Direct Messages from Anyone.”

Without this option checked, you and the person sending the DM have to follow one another. That can be difficult to manage if you’re trying to use Twitter as a customer service vehicle.

Taking these actions will make it much easier for you to build a Twitter following and engage with your audience there.

Categories
Social Media

Social Media Management & Personal Balance: How to Step AFK

Balancing social media management with personal life involves setting clear boundaries, scheduling content in advance, and using management tools for efficiency. Prioritizing mental health by taking regular breaks and not over-engaging with negative content is important. It’s also beneficial to diversify tasks and delegate responsibilities to maintain a healthy work-life balance in the demanding world of social media.

The world of social media is always changing and can be incredibly fun and exciting. Social media managers often find it exhausting, though. Why? They become attached to their work and remain connected far more than they actually need to be. Does this sound like you? It’s time to learn how to step away from the keyboard (AFK) and find better work/life balance.

A Minimum of Two Tech Free Hours Per Day

Yes, social media managers need to be connected. No, they do not need to be online 24/7. Put that crazy myth aside. No one dictates your accessibility but you, whether you’re an employee of the brand or a contractor. You’re either charging a premium rate for regular monitoring or they need to have someone else on-call for your “off” hours to make sure there are no fire that need to be put out.

That said, you need to have at least two tech-free hours per day. Upon waking, spend some time thinking about your gratitudes, having breakfast, showering, and planning your day. Do not pick up your phone or tablet and immediate hop onto social media. It can wait. Someone will probably call you if it can’t.

Spend at least one tech-free hour at the end of each day, too. We know it’s hard to completely unplug from tech, even after our work hours are over. It’s important, though. Unplugging to spend time resting, thinking, meditating, reading, and quieting your mind will lead to better rest and better focus the next day.

Schedule Other Non-work Time

Listen. You are a human being. You are not an extension of your computer or your phone. Leave your phone on the desk when you go to the bathroom. Allow the phone to remain in your purse, briefcase, or coat pocket while you have lunch in the middle of the day. Do not eat meals at your desk while working. Turn your notifications or sound off for an hour or two in the afternoon so you can exercise, have coffee with a friend, or do something social. Yes, social media managers can have social lives away from technology, too.

Limit Social Media to One Device

A lot of social media managers think they have to be connected via their phones all the time. This isn’t true; or it doesn’t need to be. Designate a single device for your social media “work,” and leave it at that. No protests. A secondary device should be for emergencies only. This will make it easier for you to walk away and deal with your offline life whenever necessary.

There is nothing you can do on your phone that you can’t do via a third-party desktop app, including Instagram interactions. Designating a device for work will help you to maintain a degree of separation while you’re out and about, spending time with family, and living your regular life. You don’t need to worry about whether or not your last post is getting engagement while you’re sitting in the dentist’s chair or while you’re picking up your kids from school. If you’re not at work you’re not at work. Disengage.

Stop Setting Unrealistic Expectations

Yes, people like quick responses to private messages. But do they expect them? Not in the way you think. According to Edison Research, approximately 42 percent of people using social expect some sort of response within five minutes to an hour; 25 percent expect a same-day response; and more than 33 percent expect to hear from you within a couple of days.

Here’s the deal, though. These are expected response times for customer service. What average brand do you know with 24/7 customer service?  Very few, we’re sure. What does this mean to you as a social media manager? It means you should glance at social messages once every hour or so throughout your regular work day. Assign a team member to monitor for a couple of hours in the early morning or evening if there is a true time zone difference. Otherwise, put up an automated response letting your customers know someone will get back to them within normal business hours.

Planning Ahead for Vacations

Not only do you deserve time AFK during the work week, but you also deserve a real, true vacation. All you have to do is plan ahead. Use social media tools like HootSuite or Buffer to schedule your social content in advance, repurpose content to fill in any gaps that may appear while you’re away, and find someone to monitor notifications and messages while you’re gone.

Once you’ve got a plan in place you’ll need to be like Elsa and just let it go. Seriously. Turn off your notifications (especially push notifications), let your boss and team know your schedule, and set a time or two to check-in to advise if there are true emergencies. Note, this time isn’t to work — just to advise or consult if they are having an issue. Otherwise, take deep breath and enjoy your time away.

Set Your Own Standards

Remember, again, you are in control of your social media presence. It’s your job to create the standards for the job. Decide on the hours you’ll be available and which are your days off (yes, you get those, too). Communicate your goals. Create your own set of backup plans and share tasks with your team members. Don’t have a team member? Find one. These points are just as important as the social marketing strategies you’re employing.

While it’s very true that social media trolls never sleep, they’re just that — trolls. You, on the other hand, deserve to live a nourished, healthy, sleep-rich life. The trolls will be there when you wake up, and your real customers won’t really care about them. Focus on creating great content, engaging appropriately with your true audience, and sending leads back to your brand’s website and campaigns. You can do all of this and maintain a healthy work/life balance. Don’t let anyone trick you into thinking otherwise.

Exit mobile version
Skip to content