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Facebook Insights Shows You When Your Customers Are Online

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Knowing when to post on Facebook can be a hard decision to nail down.

Thankfully, Facebook Insights is here to help. The Insights of your Facebook Page are easy to access, as long as you have an active Facebook Page for your business, and have been posting on it consistently.

Your Insights can tell you a lot about your posts, from which ones get the most engagement, to what your demographics for your followers are, and how that can help you market your business on social media.

Facebook Insights also makes it a lot easier for you to know when your customers are online, and when will be the most likely time for them to see your post organically in their timeline.

Knowing when your customers are most active on Facebook can help you to grow your post reach numbers and, subsequently, your engagement numbers.

So, where do you go to access your Page’s Insights? It’s pretty simple, actually. All you need to do is go to your Facebook Page and then click on the tab at the top of your page that says Insights.

When you get to your Insights page, you’ll see lots of data about your Page that Facebook has compiled for you, including Page Views, Reach, Page Engagements, and more.

To the left of the screen, you’ll see a row of options for different segments of Page data that you can view. You’ll want to click on the option that says Posts to view the date for all the posts you’ve published.

Data on when your fans are online is one of the first things you will see on this page and the main focus that we want to talk about today.

The data that is shown to you on this page is from a 1-week period of time, so you’ll see that it has the data divided up by each day of the week, Sunday through Saturday.

If you hover your mouse over each day, you will see the data line on the graph below move to show you the number of people who were on Facebook at different times during the day.

If you don’t hover your mouse over the days, and just look at the Times graph by itself, it shows you a weekly average of the times that your followers are online. And if you hover your mouse along the graph, you can see an average of how many people were online at any given time during the day.

Data like this can help you determine what times of the day you should be posting your content so that the maximum amount of people can view it. If you’re like most small businesses, a.k.a. ones that don’t have the time or resources to have more than one post a day on your Facebook Page, then you have to make sure you’re posting at the optimal time.

Facebook Insights gives you a lot of easy-to-analyze data that can help you learn about your followers and when they’re online. Make sure you’re utilizing all the free tool that Facebook gives your Page so that you can make the best of it and keep your customers engaged.

How to Use SEO Data To Construct Your Social Media Strategy

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SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is critical to having a successful website. Why? To put it simply, everything online revolves around it and the search engines that are used to help people find your website.

You might know a thing or two about SEO, but are you someone who has learned to apply your SEO know-how to your social media strategy?

SEO and social media go hand-in-hand, and if you’re looking to break through the muddled mess of websites that now exist on the internet, we’ve got a few tips to help you increase your social media presence by understanding SEO.

Keywords

You already know how keywords help to optimize the SEO of your website but are you also paying attention to the keywords that you and your customers use on social media?

Have you ever done a keyword search on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook to find the topics that are trending? More than that, have you looked into what people are saying about you and your company?

There are lots of tools out there, like Mention and Google Alerts, that can help you see what other people are saying about you. However, if you don’t want to setup an automated system, a quick search for certain keywords on a social media platform can give you an idea of what people are talking about, as well.

When you see what people are saying about your company, you can improve your message. And when you see what topics people are interested in hearing about, you can craft your brand and your social media messaging around that topic.

Insights

Are you checking your social media insights to see which posts are getting the most interactions, clicks, likes, and shares? These are key data points that you should be paying attention to if you want to grow your online presence.

A lot of the success behind your high-ranking posts relies on how well you’re optimizing those posts to get it in front of users’ eyes.

You can apply specific keywords to posts to make them perform better, or you can read up on Feed Algorithms, to see how to game the system, and get your posts in front of more users. Each social media platform has its own way of prioritizing posts to users, so see which strategy works best for each platform.

Once you understand your Insights, you can begin focusing on promoting those posts that are performing better than others. Before you know it, you’ll see your post reach and interaction numbers start to climb.

Analytics

Google Analytics can be your best friend if you’re trying to figure out how to boost traffic to your website and your social media accounts.

Do you know which pages of your website get the most page views, or have the lowest bounce rate? What about conversion rates?

When you pay attention to your website analytics, like the ones that Google can provide for you, it’s easier to see what’s working and what isn’t.

You can take the information you gather from your website analytics, and use that info to push high-performing content to your social media accounts.

It’s important to learn how SEO data and social media strategy work together to positively impact your business.

How To Hide Spammy or Inappropriate Comments On Instagram

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Have you ever received a comment on an Instagram post that seemed either spammy or wildly inappropriate? If you have a public Instagram account (which, as a business, you definitely should have), then you know how much of a problem inappropriate comments can be on Instagram.

Luckily, there’s a solution to this oftentimes awkward problem.

Recently, Instagram introduced a new feature that aims to curb or completely eliminate the growing trend of uninvited inappropriate comments and offensive phrases on posts.

Inappropriate comments can really tarnish the professional look of your business. Sometimes, these comments can have links to other accounts that promote nudity or pornography, which is definitely a bad look for your business if you’re trying to appear clean and friendly.

It only takes a few steps to setup this filter, and we’ll walk you through how to do it in today’s blog post.

Options

To access the comment filter, you’ll first need to go to the Options section of your Instagram app. If you’re using an iOS device (iPhone, iPad) the options are indicated by a gear icon. For Android users, the options are three vertical dots stacked on top of one another.

Once you’re in your app options, scroll down until you see the Settings section, and then click on Comments.

This is where you’ll find a few options for filtering out inappropriate comments.

Default Keywords

Instagram automatically filters out certain words that are deemed inappropriate by a majority of the population. These include curse words, references to private body parts, and more. Unfortunately, Instagram does not list which words the default filtering includes, but it will block most things deemed offensive by a majority of the population.

All you need to do to block the default keywords is tap the button next to Hide Inappropriate Comments, and then click Done.

Custom Keywords

Need to set up custom keywords to block in your comments? Instagram allows you to do that as well.

If you don’t think that the default keywords will do the job, you can use the next area of the Comments settings to enter certain words or phrases that you also want to block from showing in your post comments.

Just type out the words you want to be blocked by Instagram, using a comma to separate each word, and then click the Done button.

Deleting Comments

Sometimes, inappropriate just fall through the cracks of the filter and end up on your posts anyway. If this happens, don’t worry; you can still get rid of the comments by manually deleting them.

Now, keep in mind, I am not talking about negative comments on your posts. You should never delete a customer’s critical comment, even if it does speak poorly about you. However, if they use inappropriate language in their comment, that does give you ground to delete the comment.

If you would like to delete a comment on a post, it’s very simple. Just go to the post in question, and click on the bubble shaped Comments button, like you’re going to leave a comment on a post (located in-between the heart and paper airplane icons underneath the post).

Hold down on the screen where the inappropriate comment is located, and then click the trash can icon at the top of the screen.

That’s it! The comment has been deleted, no questions asked.

Reporting Comments

Reporting a comment is as simple as deleting one. You’ll go to the comment on your post and long press on it, just like you did when deleting a comment.

But, instead of pressing the trash can icon, you’ll press the octagon with the ! in the center of it.

Instagram will ask you why you are wanting to report the comment, and you can select either Spam or Scam, or Abusive Content.

Reporting is great for not only getting the comment off of your post but also letting Instagram know that the user who posted the comment is improperly using Instagram and going against its Terms of Use.

That’s it, really. Instagram makes it very easy for users to protect against unwanted and unnecessary comments. Protect your brand and your customers from dangerous spam accounts, and inappropriate comments by using the settings available to you in the Instagram app.

How To Setup A Facebook Messenger Bot To Answer Customer Questions

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Message based AI’s, sometimes called chatbots, are a growing trend in marketing and sales. You’ve probably encountered a chatbot before when looking for answers to a question online, or through one of your work group chat tools, like Slack.

Many of us also carry around our own advanced helper AI’s in our pockets every day, through software like Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa or Cortana.

Chatbots and AI assistants are a growing trending in the world of marketing, and it’s helping convert sales at a faster rate than ever before, by funneling customers to wherever you want them to go. But don’t worry about the complexities of setting up your own chatbot to help your conversion rate and drive more sales; one of the most popular social media messaging apps, Facebook Messenger, makes it simple for any business to create their very own chatbot!

This article will help you setup a simple chatbot for your Facebook Page, and then show you a few other online services that can help you set up a more advanced chatbot.

Messenger Chatbot

Facebook has its own basic chatbot that lets any business setup a simple chatbot to respond to customers. Facebook’s chatbot is great for letting customers know you are away from your computer right now but will be responding to them as soon as you can.

Giving your customers the reassurance that you will get in touch with them as soon as you can is important for building trust. It can also help increase your response time to customers’ messages, which shows up on your page to let people know how well you respond to inquiries.

To setup your simple chatbot on Facebook, you first need to go to your Facebook Page and then click on Settings. Then, go to your Messaging settings. This is where you’ll find the basic chatbot settings to turn on your instant replies, and customize your messages.

There are three main settings for your messaging bot: Instant Replies, Away Message, and Messenger Greeting.

Instant Replies allow you to instantly send a response back to customers whenever they message your page. You can customize this message to fit your business.

Away Messages are similar to Instant Replies, but they also allow you to keep your responsiveness rating high. These types of messages are great for when you’re away from your phone or computer, but still want to reassure customers that you will reply soon.

A Messenger Greeting is a message that pops up whenever a customer starts a chat with you. It’s a handy little tool that you can use to let customers know what kinds of questions you can help answer for them.

All of these messages can be customized by first turning on the type of response, and then clicking on Change to customize your Messenger bot replies.

Chatfuel

Chatfuel is a helpful third-party application that allows anyone to create a chatbot, without having to mess with tricky and complex coding.

To get started with Chatfuel, you’ll first have to connect your Facebook account that associated with your Facebook Page. Then, select the Page you’d like to use your chatbot with, or, if you don’t currently have a Facebook Page, you can also create a new Page with the help of Chatfuel.

Once you get your Page connected and your free account setup, you can start adding different elements to you chatbot.

Your chatbot can do lots of things for you, including answering customers’ basic questions for more information, sending them to specific links, or helping them buy a product directly from their Messenger app!

Like most chatbots, Chatfuel works based off of recognizing keywords that your customers types out, and pulling information that’s relevant to their questions based on those keywords. You can customize lots of different elements of your Chatfuel bot, and most information can be customized with a simple text box and drag-and-drop feature.

Botsify

Botsify works in the same way that Chatfuel does, with easy to customize blocks and text boxes. They have a basic free version that anyone can use, but they also have tiered paid versions, if you happen to manage more than one Facebook Page or you’re the social media manager of a much larger company.

Not only can you create simple and effective chatbots for your Facebook Page, Botsify also allows you to create a chatbot for your website, for an affordable price.

There are tons of cool features available from Botsify to get your up and running with your brand new, effective chatbot for business!

Chatbots are a fantastic new tool for marketing that tons of businesses across the globe are integrating into their marketing strategies.

Experiment with chatbots and see how they can help funnel your sales and earn you more business than ever before.

Using Instagram Ads To Boost Your Business

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Instagram is quickly becoming one of the most popular social media platforms available, surpassing both Twitter and Pinterest in the number of daily users, according to a study by the Pew Research Center.

It’s also the second most popular platform for millennial users, with 59% of those surveyed between 18-29 saying they use Instagram, second only to Facebook, with 88% saying they use it.

It’s clear that Instagram has a huge influence over consumers, and businesses should be coming up with strategies to take advantage of the great marketing opportunities afforded by this platform. One of the ways to engage with customers is through advertising on Instagram.

If you’re new to Instagram Ads, don’t worry, we’ve got some great info today that can help get you started and on the path to earning yourself more business.

Different Types of Ads

With Instagram, you have a few different options for advertising your products and services to customers. Instagram is primarily a photo sharing platform, but videos have been growing exponentially in the service, thanks to the addition of minute long videos, live streaming, and Stories.

Routine picture posts are the simplest way to show off your products on Instagram, but videos are better at showing a more accurate representation of what you’re selling and keeping people interested in your post for a longer time. However, be careful when you post a video. If you don’t grab a user’s attention within the first few seconds of a video, then they’ll scroll right on past your content.

With Instagram’s new Multi-Upload feature, you can now add up to 10 photos to one single post, leaving the door open for lots of unique advertising opportunities.

And let’s not forget about Stories, Instagram’s unabashed clone of Snapchat’s own Stories feature. Certain brands have access to advertising capabilities in Stories and feature their ads in between a user’s follower’s Stories, but this is only open to a select few companies right now. Instead, think about using the normal Stories feature to give your followers something exclusive to check out, like behind-the-scenes access to your business operations, or exclusive promotional codes.

How To Setup An Ad

Sponsored posts in Instagram work a little bit differently than in other places. In order to set up an Instagram Ad through their service, you first have to have a Facebook Business Page. Facebook and Instagram advertising are tied together, which makes sense when you consider that Facebook bought Instagram back in 2012.

You’ll also need to make sure your Instagram account is set up as an official business account.

You’ll need to connect your Instagram account to your Facebook Page by clicking on Settings on your Page, and then going to the tab that says Instagram Ads on the left side of the screen. Connect your Instagram account using your username and password, and then add the accounts you want to Advertise on to finish up.

Next, navigate to the Ad Creation page, and then select your marketing objective from the list of options. Facebook makes it easy for anyone to create an ad, even if you’ve never done one before. If you’re unsure what one of the marketing objectives is on the list, hover over the “i” icon and Facebook will give you a brief description of what each type of objective does for you.

The next step involves selecting who your target audience for the ad will be, based on various demographics such as location, age, gender, interests, and more. You’ll also have to decide how much you want to spend on your advertising campaign, and whether you want to increase your engagement or impressions. Don’t worry if you don’t know what to do here; Facebook makes it very easy to set up a campaign and explains every part of the process in great detail.

The last thing you need to remember, and maybe the most important thing, is to add appropriate and engaging captions and Call-To-Actions on your advertisement. The ultimate goal of an ad is to drive users to your website to make a purchase, right? If you publish an ad with no CTAs to lead them to clicking on a button or making a call to your business, then your ad will be unsuccessful.

Lead your customers from your Instagram post, to your website, to making a purchase on your website. It’s all about conversions with advertising, and Instagram ads provide a new tool for you to get more sales!

What An Ad Can Do For You

Users on Instagram are far more likely to engage with branded posts than they are on both Facebook and Twitter. In fact, Instagram is known for having an extremely high engagement rate compared to other social media platforms.

According to data collected from YotPo, 30% of Instagram users have bought something they first spotted on Instagram. Not only that, visitors from Instagram stay on a site for an average of 192 seconds, meaning they’re a much more engaged audience than Facebook or Twitter users.

Instagram ads have proven year after year that they’re the kings of online engagement. Try advertising on Instagram today and see what it can do for your business.

For more on getting started with Instagram Ads for Business, check out their help page.

3 Ways Millennials Use Social Media To Research Products Before Buying

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Millennials can seem like a tricky age group to target. Lots of companies have found a way to target this niche group with their marketing strategies, but others have tried and failed, which ends up making them seem inauthentic in the process.

If you’re trying to target millennials, inauthenticity is the absolute worst first impression that you could make on them.

You could make arguments on either side whether you think social media is an authentic or inauthentic place for people to gather, but there’s no denying that it’s where most millennials go to find their information. And now, it’s also the place where most of them go to check out your products before committing to making a purchase from you.

Social media is the new way that people are researching your products. Here are three popular social media platforms, and the ways that millennials are using them to search for your products.

Facebook

Most businesses have a Facebook Page. If they don’t, well, a lot of millennials won’t even consider buying from them. That might seem like a harsh reality, but it’s the truth.

A Facebook Page is more than just a place to give updates on your business. It’s also a hub for reviews, photos, videos, customer complaints and more; all things that millennials consider when deciding whether to buy your products.

These buyers will come to your Facebook page to see what other customers are saying about you, how your products and customer service have been reviewed, and whether they can find videos and pictures of your products being used. In some cases, if you have the options enabled, people can also buy directly from your Facebook Page through a custom Facebook Store.

Instagram

Facebook might be the most popular social media service among millennials (41% of millennials say they use it every day), but Instagram is quickly becoming a powerhouse in the social media world. This is partly due to its simplicity, and fun new features, such as Stories, that have been added in the past few years.

Instagram is like a stripped down, bare bones version of a Facebook Page. It’s where millennials will look to find helpful short videos and, of course, pictures of your products in action. Millennials can also smell a company that’s trying too hard on their Instagram post from miles away. Remember to keep your posts authentic and grounded, so your customers know they can trust you when buying from your business. Like Facebook, Instagram also has a Buy Now shopping option so customers can buy directly from your account. Lead them into buying from you through a great post showing off your amazing products.

YouTube

YouTube is often seen as a video sharing service, but it’s so much more than that. Did you know that YouTube is also considered one of the most popular search engines, in the same vein as Google and Yahoo?

That means that, like most search engines, people are using YouTube as a way to search for answers to their questions. YouTube is full of tutorial videos ranging from the popular makeup tutorials to more obscure interests like how to make your own McDonald’s Big Mac sauce.

Companies use their personal YouTube accounts to show off how some of their products work, troubleshoot problems through help videos, and promote something new that they’re selling. Millennials are more likely to watch a video tutorial than reading a lengthy written tutorial. Videos save time, they’re more interactive, and they’re more fun. Consider creating some interactive and informative videos to attract millennial consumers to your page.

Millennials are the age group of instant access and quick info. Cater to their needs, just as you would any other generation of consumer, by properly utilizing all the helpful features of your social media accounts.

Instagram and the New Multi-Upload Feature

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For the past few years, multimedia social sharing company Instagram has been working hard to introduce tons of new features to bring in customers to their excellent platform. From Instagram Stories, a variation of the Snapchat Story feature, to Boomerang, and minute-long video clips, Instagram has been constantly evolving in an effort to entice new customers and keep their current customers from jumping to a different social media app.

Now, Instagram has introduced a much-requested feature that is once again changing the game for what users can do with the app. With the release of its latest update, Instagram has added the ability for users to upload a combination of up to 10 photos or videos to one post, cutting out the task of uploading individual pictures and videos, which can bog up your followers’ feeds.

With this new feature, Instagram is essentially adding a slideshow album feature. It appears as a single photo or video in a user’s feed, but when you swipe to the left, more photos and videos are revealed. This is a great feature for business owners who want to show off their products and beautiful photography to their followers, without annoying them with too much “spam posting.”

If you don’t yet know how to upload multiple photos to your company’s Instagram page, we can help you out!

Update Your App

Before you can begin adding multiple photos to a single post, you’ll first need to make sure that your Instagram app is currently updated with the latest version of the app. The version that added the Multi-Upload function was version 10.9 on both iOS and Android, so any version after 10.9 will have the new feature.

Upload

After you’ve updated your app, it’s time to start uploading your pictures and video. You can upload multiple items to Instagram in the same way you used to upload your pictures and videos. All you have to do is click the “+” icon in the bottom center of the app screen. This will bring up a page where you would normally select one photo from your phone’s photo gallery to upload, but this time, you have the option to select more than one item.

Select Multiple Photos/Videos

To select multiple photos, you need to click the button on the right side of the screen that looks like two squares stacked on top of each other. Once you click this button, you’ll notice a circle appear in the right corner of each of the photos in your gallery. When you click on these photos, a number appears in the circle indicating how many photos have been selected so far. Select up to 10 photos and videos, and then click Next to continue to the app’s Editing tools.

Make Edits

Instagram gives you the option of editing all of your uploaded photos and videos at once with the normal filters located at the bottom of the editing window. But you can also edit each photo individually by clicking on the specific photo or video you want to edit. After you’ve made all the edits to your pictures, it’s time to give your post a caption, add your hashtags, add a location, etc. Note: you can only add a caption for the album you’re uploading. Unfortunately, you aren’t able to add individual captions for each photo or video you’re uploading, but hopefully, Instagram will add this feature in the future.

Post!

Now you’re ready to post your awesome multimedia slideshow! When followers see your post in their feed, they’ll know it’s a multi-photo post if they see dots underneath the post. Each dot represents how many photos are in each post, and they can swipe left to see each photo/video.

There are lots of great ways to use this new Instagram feature to show off your awesome products. Check back with the FGmarket in the future to see how you can be utilizing this feature for your business!

Check out Instagram’s official blog for more info on this great new feature.

LinkedIn: A Quick Guide To Using It For Your Business

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Are you on LinkedIn? Well, if you’re not, consider this a reason to jump on board right now: LinkedIn boasts a user base of more than 400 million members.

That’s a huge chunk of the social media presence online. By comparison, Facebook, the most popular social media platform, has more than a billion users, and you’d be hard pressed to find a business out there who doesn’t currently have a Facebook Page.

You can think of LinkedIn as the more professionally-minded Facebook. It operates in much the same way as Facebook, with status updates, connections, profile pages, and messaging. But LinkedIn is primarily a recruiting and networking tool. It’s your Swiss army knife for professional networking online.

So, what do you need to do to make the most of your LinkedIn profile? We’re here to help.

Make Connections

LinkedIn is all about making connections, literally and figuratively. You want to make figurative connections with people when you network, of course, but LinkedIn gives you an actual way to do that, too. When you Connect with someone on LinkedIn, you are adding them to your online network. It’s sort of like adding someone as a friend on Facebook. You can see their profile, status updates, job updates and more, and they can also view that info on your profile. Making connections helps you to find people who might be able to assist you in the future. After all, a contact is only a click away on LinkedIn.

Post Updates

Much like other social media platforms, LinkedIn encourages sharing what’s happening in your life with your followers. This can be in the form of status updates, job updates, fun and informative articles, pictures, and more. If you have a company LinkedIn page, you can post updates of the latest news that’s happening within your own company, such as new projects, new employees, and maybe even a cause or event you’re sponsoring. Social media is all about being social, and you can’t be social if you keep everything to yourself.

Inform Followers Of Job Postings

One of the main reasons companies get a LinkedIn page is to supplement their job listings. You can post job listings and applications on LinkedIn, making the hiring search that much easier. You can also message potential candidates for a job directly if you’d like to offer them a job that way. But be sure to always keep your job openings updated so people know when and how to apply for a job!

Fill Out Your Profile Completely

The profile page was created to be filled out completely. Not some of the way, and not half of the way, but 100 percent. Not only is filling out your profile the best way to give visitors to your page all the info they need to know about you, it’s also important in getting your page found. When you fill out your profile with info such as your website URL, company bio, skills, interests, and more, you’re helping your pages SEO (or search engine optimization). I filled out profile is more likely to rank your page higher in search engine results, leading to more people finding out about your company.

Gather Endorsements

This is more for a personal profile rather than a company LinkedIn profile, but endorsements are another great way to utilized your account. You can be endorsed by your followers for an enormous variety of skills, such as customer service, professionalism, social media, writing, accounting, etc. Basically, any skill that you believe you have, you can have your friends, coworkers, and colleagues endorse you for it. These endorsements show visitors to your profile what you excel at doing, and how professional you are, which could lead to even more business opportunities.

Cross Promote Your Other Accounts

Social media thrives off of cross promotion, or sharing content from one social media account on another one. A good example of this is whenever you have an event that’s coming up. Instead of just promoting the event on Facebook and hoping that people see it, you can also post the details of the event on a LinkedIn status update. This will reach more people than just posting on one website alone, and will also reach a different kind of crowd. Be sure to let your followers know about all of your social media accounts, and encourage them to follow you on everything you have.

This post originally appeared on www.atwillmedia.com. Need a new website? Check out Atwill Media!

Creating Engaging Snapchat Stories

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In just a few short years, Snapchat has grown from a small communication app that teens and millennials use, to a full-fledged social media powerhouse, one that brands all around the world are utilizing in their social marketing strategies.

Why is that? Well, it’s partially due to the fact that most people these days have a very short attention span, and it’s increasingly getting shorter. Snapchat taps into that niche of people who don’t have the time to spend more than 10-15 seconds on any one thing. We’re living in an increasingly distracted world. Snapchat is the marketer’s solution to that distraction.

First, if you’re not a Snapchat aficionado, you might be wondering: what the heck is this thing?

Admittedly, Snapchat isn’t the easiest app to understand if you’re a first time user. Yes, the app sort of walks you through the basics of Snapchat, but to really understand all the tips and tricks of it, you need to dig pretty deep.

So, to make your job using Snapchat a little easier, we’ve created a fun and easy list of all the tricks you need to know to make your Snapchat account better and more engaging!

 Snaps Vs. Stories

The first thing that needs to be addressed is the difference between Snaps and Stories. When you send a Snap on Snapchat, you are sending it to a select person or group of people. This might work for a personal account, but business accounts need to be a little different.

This is where Stories come in. The Stories section of Snapchat lets you upload individual Snaps into a linear progression. Unlike normal Snaps, Stories last 24 hours and can be rewatched as many times as the user wants in that 24 hour period. They’re perfect for businesses, because it brings people to you, instead of sending out mass Snaps to everyone you follow.

Make It Fun

Okay, so now that the difference between Snaps and Stories has been established, we’ll get into the gnitty gritty details of how to make your Stories engaging.

If you’re going to use Snapchast as a marketing tool, the first thing you need to do is understand why people use the app.

Snapchat is made for quick and temporary info. Unlike other social media networks where statuses can be seen later, you have to make your Snaps have an impact almost immediately. Whereas sometimes statuses need to be interacted with and shared a few times to start seeing the effects, your Snaps need to work right away.

So, you have to make your Snaps fun. Don’t send out boring pictures, and don’t record video that will make people skip your story completely.

Some fun things you can do with your story are things like giving your followers a look at some behind the scenes action at work, covering an event you might be at, asking them questions about the company and what they’d like from you, and even do promotions! (more on promotions later). Social media is all about connecting with your customers, and Snapchat is no different.

Use Filters and Drawing Tools

Snapchat is full of fun features that allow you to personalize any Snap with your own unique flare. One of the ways Snapchat does this is through filters. If you swipe left or right after taking a Snap, you’ll cycle through a number of different filters. Some of these filters edit your photo with a nice overlay, some of them include info at the time of the Snap, such as temperature and time, and others give you unique filters based on where you are currently. These are known as geofilters.

You can also use the filters on your face and transform yourself into a number of fun creations, such as a dog, a beautiful model, and so much more! New filters are added all the time, making filters an ever evolving tool.

Another fun way to spice up your Snap is to draw on top of your Snaps using the Drawing Tool. Snapped a pic of something and need to point out a certain aspect of the photo? Draw an arrow pointing to the focal point? Want to draw a fun flower growing in the middle of your shop? Use the drawing tool! You can even encourage your followers to send pics of their artistic skills to you!

Geofilters

Geofilters are a very cool feature of Snapchat that transform any photo into a personalized work of art. These are special features that work with your location/GPS on your phone. When you’re in an area that has a geofilters setup, you’ll get new filters that are specific to your location, such as a geofilters for town, park, or event. These geofilters are created and submitted by users, and are selected by Snapchat as official filters for certain areas.

A really cool thing about geofilters is that anyone can create and submit their own geofilters. Got an event that you want to promote? Create a geofilters before the event and submit it to Snapchat for a certain time and date range. That way, people who are at your shop or event can use the geofilters to customize their experience with your business!

Use It For Promotions

Promotions are one of the best way to utilize Snapchat for business. Many businesses have been using Snapchat to promote their new products, or specials that they are currently running.

For example, got a new product that you want to show off? Why not give your followers an exclusive “first look” at it?

You can even use Snapchat to send out an exclusive coupon that only people who follow you will know about! It’s a great way to make customers feel like they’re getting a special deal that no one else knows about. Exclusivity is a great marketing skill with proven results.

Snapchat can be one of the most engaging, personal forms of social media out there, but it all depends on how you use it. Take advantage of all the benefits of Snapchat today, and see how it can help grow your business!

How To Take Advantage Of Pinterest For Business

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Pinterest isn’t just for making wedding planning boards, french bulldog pics, and too-good-to-be-true cooking recipes. Pinterest can be a fantastic marketing and promotional tool if you know how to use it correctly.

In the early days, yes, Pinterest was mainly used as a visual note-taking and reminder app, where you could save cool things for later viewing. But, over time, Pinterest has morphed into an entirely new beast, one that’s even better suited to promoting your business and e-commerce than you might think.

If you need some help figuring out how to utilize all the neat features available on Pinterest, we’ve got some tips to help you out.

Fill Out Your Info

In recent years, Pinterest has introduced a Pinterest for Business account option. The business account differs than the regular account in a number of ways, most notably it includes the addition of an analytics function, which we’ll talk more about later.

When you sign up for a business account, you need to make sure all of the relevant information is filled out on your profile page. Pinterest will ask you for certain information, such as your Business Type, Location, Website URL, Business Name, an About You section and more that will help Pinners find your profile more easily.

Pin Relevant Content

No one likes to see content that doesn’t interest them when they’re scrolling through their home feed. It’s annoying, especially since more and more people these days require businesses to cater to their needs, rather than stretching a wide net and seeing what gets caught in it.

You need to know your audience and know what they want to see on Pinterest. Most of the time, that means creating Pins with appealing visuals and good info. If you’re a restaurant, Pin photos of your dishes, or maybe a fun recipe for people to try at home. You never know what’s going to prompt people to look into your business and become a paying customer.

Make It Look Good

Pinterest is mainly used by people on the app version rather than the desktop version. That means most people will only see a few Pins on their phone screen at a time, which makes vertical Pins the best ones to use. Make your pictures long, vertical pictures so the customer has to stay on the Pin longer when they’re scrolling through. This makes it more likely that they’ll pay attention to what you’re Pinning. Just be sure to keep your Pins within Pinterest’s guidelines, an aspect ration of 2:3 to 1:2.8 and width of at least 600px.

Create Specific Boards

When Pinning on Pinterest, you don’t just Pin your items to one board, right? You have a variety of boards that are focused on specific interests. It makes organizing your pins so much easier, and you can find the things you need much faster!

Similarly, your customers want to be able to find your products organized into specific boards. It helps them to sift through your Pins at a quicker rate, and will give them the peace of mind they need to make a purchasing decision.

Measure Analytics

Now, to the data. Pinterest has now made access to your account’s analytics easier than ever. That means you can now see how many people your Pins are reaching, your average daily Pinterest profile impressions, which Pins are performing the best, how many people clicked your Pins, and so much more!

This data is highly important for measuring whether your Pinterest account is working, or failing to grab peoples’ attentions. It’s always easier to see what you’re doing right and wrong once you have the data in front of you.

You Can Sell On Pinterest

Pinterest recently released another new feature called Buyable Pins. These are Pins that you set up which allows Pinners to buy your products directly from Pinterest.

Pinners will see a “Buy It” button on a Buyable Pin. When they click this button, order details and payment info are sent to the merchant for processing, and the buyer is able to buy their favorite products directly on Pinterest!

Right now, only a select few Pinterest Business accounts have the ability to sell products through Buyable Pins, but if you’d like more info on how to get this setup, visit Pinterest’s FAQ page on Selling on Pinterest. 

Don’t underestimate Pinterest; it’s a powerful social media tool that can lead to more views on your website, more customers, and more sales!