Social Media

Social media stories

As daily active users on Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp reach over 500 million, Smart Cow, as a Social Media marketing agency, look at the story function within social media and how this can help your brand extend its reach to your target audience and build brand awareness.

What are social media stories?

Social media stories offer the user the ability to share videos and images in addition to their normal social media posts. On Facebook and Instagram these images last for 24 hours and then disappear.

Instagram allows you to save your highlights so that the images remain on your page in neat little collections. This means people can still view what you have posted well after the 24 hours are up.

These highlights offer a great way to section off different products and services. Or the ability to save information for a product launch as part of creating a social media strategy.

Benefits of using Instagram stories for business

Around 62% of people say they have become interested in a brand having seen it in the story function.

Design features allow the ability to add gifs, tag people and places and type a caption – with lots of lovely colour choices, perfect for keeping on brand.

These are generally known as stickers which can include options such as:

  • Donation sticker
  • Countdown sticker
  • Question sticker
  • Poll
  • Location

All of these offer a great way to enhance your small business social media marketing strategy, helping to really engage with your audience.

As the stories appear at the top of a social page it’s sometimes more visible on a feed. It’s also a great way to see who is actually seeing your stories which can help with ongoing engagement.  

You can encourage clicks with call to actions such as shop now, swipe up or discover more.

If you are creating a video for stories then do this vertically rather than horizontally as this will enable you to share it correctly on Instagram.

But in its simplest form you can invite people to review your ‘new post’ with a brightly coloured sticker having shared the post from your grid by using the little triangle icon below the image.

Be consistent

As a social media marketing agency, we always recommend that you ensure that your social media channels are consistent so that you reinforce your brand. So, make sure you choose the same font, colour and gifs to bolster the look and feel of your business.  

Can you just use social media for marketing?

Like any other digital marketing tactic, social media marketing needs to be considered within your wider marketing strategy, such as your blog post or Facebook ads to understand what channels you should be on and the type of content you should share.

Avoid thinking of social media as the only way you can reach a target audience. It’s best to think of it in a holistic way. Review other digital marketing options such as Search Engine Optimisation/SEO services, Pay Per Click (PPC) or email marketing.

Social media marketing should always use links that lead back to your website. Link building is another helpful way to help guide Google that a website is reputable and this includes links from a social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. But importantly, ensure that your website is relevant and that you keep it updated with fresh blog content. This will form part of your wider marketing plan.

To be efficient, the best use of your time is to repurpose content from blogs that you have written. While social media is fantastic for live events, launches through to promotions, you need to maintain frequency of social posts which is where a content plan will help you schedule timely and relevant posts for your target audience.

Social media marketing Croydon

We’re a digital marketing agency based in Croydon supporting local businesses with their inbound marketing. As social media consultants, we support you with social media marketing plans and real time reviews of your social media analytics. As one of Croydon’s social media marketing companies, we offer our clients cost effective social media services. Get in touch today for further enquiries.

Facebook scrabble letters

Facebook News feature set for UK launch

One of our favourite Social media marketing channels, Facebook, is launching a new type of content, Facebook News in the UK following its US launch last year.

The new dedicated tab within Facebook will include a mix of daily news stories and will surely be of great use for social media marketing for business. It will also feature personalised news based on a user’s interests based on Facebook’s algorithm.

The function will allow the user to “take control” of the news they see such as hiding articles or requesting to read more when of interest. Users can simply tap the three lines at the top of the mobile app to find “News for you” providing focussed content.

It will be divided into categories including: general, topical, diverse and local news.

It will include publications such as The Economist, The Independent, Cosmopolitan, The Daily Mail, Financial Times and The Telegraph.

Facebook News allows publishers a new avenue for advertising and subscription options.  

Using social media for inbound marketing

Is it time to discard any social media channels?

Social media offers a way for companies to communicate with their target audience to attract potential customers.

However, with so much more activity and hope placed on social media,  businesses are perhaps starting to understand more which channel is right for them for sharing content. So, as part of your social media marketing plan, is it time to discard any social channels to start the year afresh and focus on the optimum platforms for your business when creating a social media marketing strategy?

What social channels to use for your business

Here’s a couple of angles to consider as to whether you should stop using any social media channels:

  1. On one hand marketing your brand on social media provides quality links back to your website – which is where you want to send people to as part of your lead generation strategy. It’s these quality links which help search engines find you but also these quality links enable a search engine to understand if you are a relevant and good website. So social media is helpful in a long-term search engine optimisation strategy (SEO). It’s also a great way for a small business to improve brand awareness in a cost-effective way.
  2. However, the second response would be that everything you do online to attract customers is about reaching your target audience. Therefore, if you aren’t getting the real time engagement on certain social channels compared to others, perhaps it is time to review what you post or even whether you remove one of the social media platforms from your content marketing strategy. This will then enable you to concentrate on the more valuable platforms where you have had more success reaching customers focusing time and effort where it is most needed so you get a return on investment.

Because there is so much noise out there online, you need to be heard. So, it is likely to become essential that you concentrate on selective social channels moving forward.

Review your social media platforms

However, no need to be hasty. Spend some time researching your competition to see what they are doing and where they are most prevalent.

Then perhaps take a closer look at your focus for the year ahead. If the product or service you wish to promote is not relevant to some of your audience on one channel then this will really help you decide.

You might also need to take a step back first and understand who your target audience is – our blog about creating an online persona for targeted sales will help you further.

Our blog to help you stand out on social media has some top tips to help attract more online engagement.

Social media marketing companies, such as Smart Cow, may advise that you might also want to consider using a social media scheduling platform such as HubSpot. This way if you do have a few social channels you can schedule a social media post across all the channels at the same time.

Social media agency Croydon

Get in touch for a free consultation where we can discuss social media strategies that could work for you, as well as how social media marketing can fit into an overall digital marketing plan including SEO, Pay Per Click (PPC) and email marketing, for lead generation for your business.

Smart Cow is a digital marketing agency based in Croydon, South London.

Using social media for inbound marketing

LinkedIn introduces new product pages

The networking social media platform has launched LinkedIn Product Pages for companies to showcase their products to LinkedIn’s audience of over 722million professionals.

This specific tab is available on a company LinkedIn page to help businesses highlight key products to followers with the aim of helping to build brand awareness. This in turn will help to generate leads for your business.

The function also allows for videos, images as well as the ability to highlight user testimonials and include a bold call to action to request a demo.

A clever aspect of the Product Pages is the capability to drill down to your target audience by specifying job roles so that your product is relevant to those viewing.

Grow your business with LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business2business (B2B) social channel with networking at its core. It enables you to connect with other professionals, clients, colleagues, prospects and employers. It provides another marketing touchpoint to promote who you are and your business. This all helps your social media manager to build trust and brand awareness.

If your business is not on LinkedIn, then perhaps now is the time to explore it for your business. Do some research to check if it is relevant for your business. If your competitors are on the social media platform then maybe you should set up a company page too.

Our blog on how LinkedIn can help you grow your business has some tips on how to set up your company page.

Social media agency

If you need support from a digital marketing agency in getting your social media channels set up and to run social media campaigns, then get in touch with us for a free consultation.

As part of your marketing strategy, a social media marketing agency such as Smart Cow can assist with your social media strategy optimise your website in the long term to help it be seen in search engine results pages. Based in London, Smart Cow can create a tone of voice for your organic social posts as well as managing paid social campaigns.