Name: Smart Cow Marketing
Price range: $$$

Social media for business

Facebook for business can be great. The channel has helped many businesses promote their services or products. You can target your audience, share news, showcase product launches, and create events, but as a business is it the best plan to put all your eggs into one basket? With advertising only on one social media channel you are essentially isolating yourself from reaching quality potential customers who are on another channel.

To successfully target an audience, you should be in the mix. If you want an audience made up of Millennials then you’ll need to re-evaluate how you use social media. Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube are all more popular among teens than Facebook*. Furthermore with many leaving Facebook, your audience might be exploring new platforms.

Is it time you had a website?

The Facebook scandal on the misuse of user data has left many people feeling unsafe, and confused. Almost in an attempt of remedying itself, Facebook has introduced a new tool. The tool enables you not only to delete your account, but see and delete the data being collected and prevent any further data collection. Perhaps this is a way of encouraging people to stay on the site as it leaves users feeling like they are back in control of their profile. Despite this, people have been deleting their Facebook profile, including celebrities and big companies.

With this in mind, if you don’t already have a website, is it time you considered creating a website for your business? This way you have a platform that is your own that you can drive your inbound marketing to, rather than to one social media platform.

So, is it the beginning of the end for Facebook? We don’t think it is going anywhere fast. It is still the most popular social network out there followed by YouTube and WhatsApp**.

Whether your business is landscape gardening, a bakery or florist. You may even run an accountancy firm or provide an event co-ordination service. What do these, and all small businesses, have in common? You want to be seen. And, with the 2018 digital marketing trends indicating that being visual is vital, isn’t it time you explored Instagram for business?

Why you should use Instagram?

People tend to remember what they see than what they read or hear, and with a picture being worth more than a thousand words, it seems to make sense to have an Instagram profile for your business. Since September 2017, it has noted that the social media platform has around ‘800 million monthly active users*’– a huge audience you really don’t want to miss out on. A popular inbound marketing tool, Instagram allows customers to interact with content that is already tailored towards them.

How to use Instagram and maximise your social media page

I’m sure the question you’re asking is how can my small business get noticed in a sea of millions of users. Don’t worry, there are a few tricks that can help boost your posts and get your Instagram page off the ground.

#HASHTAG! This means you can reach out to more people on the platform. Furthermore, users can now follow specific hashtags they are interested in. What might you hashtag? For a smaller business, ideas for hashtags can include where your business is located or who you want to target. You’re also going to want to hashtag the focus point of your business. You can use up to 30 hashtags so don’t be shy.Here’s an example that Smart Cow might use on a post: #purley #southlondon #marketing #SEO #PPC #websitedevelopment #emailmarketing.

FOLLOW RELATED ACCOUNTS! Keep your account formal and professional and refrain from following everyone you come across. Make sure you follow similar companies/pages, and both current and potential clients. You can create another account for personal use!

PLAN! Make sure you come up with creative captions and useful hashtags. Also think about a theme or layout out for your page so that it looks aesthetically appealing. Perhaps a colour scheme, or a pattern of posts. Most importantly make sure you post frequently and keep it up to date.

USE A BUSINESS ACCOUNT! Instagram has recently introduced business accounts. It allows you to create photo and video ads with links to your website. You’ll be able to; tailor ads to reach the audience you want, have easy contact information for client’s, and access to analytics.

A few other things to do are:
• Use Insta stories
• Live videos
• Direct Message

Who are the top Instagram users?

Believe it or not but amongst all those A-List celebrities with millions of follows there are also Dogs reigning the world of Instagram. Marnie the Dog, has a huge following of 2.1 million and is also verified on Instagram, or there’s Doug The Pug verified with 3.3 million and is raking in money from his own line of merchandise!

Social media agency Croydon

If you want to keep up with the pets who rule Instagram, contact Smart Cow, we specialise in digital marketing including social media management. We can help elevate your platform to a high standard and give you a kick start.

Source: *www.statista.com