Why social media content must be engaging in 2018
Why creating and sharing engaging social media content is more important than ever
We are living in a day and age where our train ride to work, lunch time smoothie and evening workout are projected into the digital world. And brands have moved into the world of Instagram and Facebook as a means to further their influence and increase engagement. So much so, that our social media feeds are now flooded with ads and promotions, frustrating users to the point where there has been a decline in usage, particularly on Facebook.
In retaliation, both Facebook and Instagram have changed their algorithm. The algorithm affects where your posts appear on the feed, who sees your content, and therefore your reach and organic engagement.
Through the altered algorithm, the social platforms intend to show content that will encourage meaningful interactions between users. The posts appearing on our social media accounts are now arranged according to the content you are most likely to interact with. This change in the algorithm penalises brands that come across as overly promotional, therefore pushing them to work harder on gaining customers and potential clients attention. Many aspects of user’s online interactions are taken into consideration within the algorithm, but ultimately, content needs to be engaging to further reach and gain followers.
So, what makes a social media post engaging? How can you influence your followers and encourage them to interact with your content? And hence, how can you grow your following and further your reach?
Know your target audience.
And work hard on providing them with content they will take an interest in.
Ensure images, captions and comments are all “thoughtful”. This is vital in maintaining an identifiable persona. “Thoughtful” content is the kind where followers can see the authenticity, value and quality within each online interaction. Your account is a reflection of your brand, consequently, your online interaction must echo your accounts personality.
Encourage interactions on your account. The more interactions occurring on a post and the longer users engage with it, the more people who will see it. Prompting users to comment on your post, through questions or content they can relate to, will encourage conversation within your account.
Utilise your social platforms. Facebook and Instagram will reward you for this and it will also add dimension to your digital identity. Create stories, send messages and comment on other account’s posts. Videos gain more engagement than images and live videos gain 6x more interactions than regular videos on Facebook.
Social media is constantly changing and evolving. Staying informed of the latest changes will help in maintaining a strong digital presence. But, perhaps most importantly, ensure your online interactions reflect the essence of your brand.
“Social media is a way that businesses can humanise their brand. By creating and sharing really engaging content, both internally and externally with your customers, you put a face to your brand which helps develop trust – be it among your team or with your customers." says our Director Shelley, in a recent article.
Make sure every post, comment and like is made with intent and speaks to who you are as a business. Genuine interaction and engagement will always follow.
Want help creating engaging content for your brand? Find out more about our content creation services by getting in touch today.
A Day In The Life Of A Digital Marketer
A Day In The Life Of A Digital Marketer
Our Director Shelley recently chatted to the team at Fashion Journal about the digital marketing industry and what a typical day looks like.
(Hint, it's not all pretty flatlays and watching cat videos.)
Want to know more about joining our team at Melbourne Social Co? Visit our careers page to see our available positions.
Why Instagram Stories are a must for business in 2018
Instagram Stories are a feature that Instagram introduced last year to fight off competition from Snapchat. The feature allows users to post photos and videos that vanish after 24 hours (unless you add them as a highlight on your profile, which stay there indefinitely). Instagram Stories are proving to be very effective in getting brand engagement for those who have embraced them already. So, what are you waiting for? Get insta story creating!
Fun facts:
- 250 million people use Instagram Stories daily
- Users spend 28 minutes more on Instagram now thanks to Stories
- 33% of the most popular stories are from businesses
- 20% of stories posted by businesses result in a direct message
Here are some ways to best utilise Instagram Stories for your business:
- A look behind the scenes
As a general rule, consumers love friendly, relatable brands. Stories is informal in nature, so use this to build a rapport with your followers. Show them the process of setting up a photoshoot, the planning that goes into an event or a product launch for instance.
- Gift unique offers
Try running ‘stories only’ competitions and putting discount codes up on Instagram Stories to build brand loyalty and reward those that check out all of your content. We all love a discount code or giveaway!
- Embrace geotagging and hashtags
Posts that feature one or more hashtags receive over 12% more engagement than those without and posts with a geotagged location get a whopping 79% more engagement. Another great benefit of adding tags to your posts is that you’ll get improved visibility as your post will be included in the Story ring for that area and hashtag. So, add in that hashtag and geotag location stat!
- Create polls
Adding a ‘poll’ sticker is a fabulous way to gather opinions from your followers and also get more engagement. The poll sticker allows you to ask your followers a question and customize the answers. E.g. What’s your favourite colour? Red or Green. Polls allow the audience to feel involved with the business and decision making. You get answers and they feel involved…win win!
Social media can be a confusing aspect of business for many people and that’s totally okay! If you think your business would benefit from a little help when it comes to Instagram and your other social channels, shoot us an email - we’d love to chat with you about your strategy!
How To Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions
New Year, new you. How many times have you said that to yourself? Every year? Us too! So many of us set unrealistic resolutions each year and end up breaking them. The key to setting reasonable New Year’s resolutions that you won’t break is to make them measurable and achievable. We’ll leave your personal resolutions up to you, but to help you get on track for a more productive year at work, here are some of our top productivity tips!
- Address must-do’s first
Have you ever put of a big project in favour of smaller, less critical ones? We’re all guilty! Although you may get the smaller tasks done faster, you could find yourself running out of time to complete the big project. So, to ensure they get done on time, always work on the more important projects at the start of the day. Your future self with thank you.
- Take breaks
Try to figure out when your productivity begins to drain and take a break. Go for a walk around the block, grab a drink or snack. When you sit back at your desk, you’ll feel more alive and ready to tackle your to-do list. Also, taking time out of each day for a bit of mindfulness will do wonders for your productivity.
- Stop multitasking
It’s a myth, okay. We all think it’s possible but really it’s not. Instead of jumping between multiple tasks at once, commit your focus to one task at a time. You’ll be surprised how much faster you get them all done simply by tackling one project at a time.
- Schedule email time and turn off notifications
These are two infamous concentration breakers. Having a set time to check emails means you aren’t getting distracted throughout the day. Set aside time in the morning and afternoon to read through and respond to emails. As for notifications, turn off the insignificant ones to allow yourself to focus on the job at hand. Nothing is more distracting than a snapchat notification popping up on your phone!
- Know when it’s time to delegate and outsource
Many business owners think they can tackle everything on their own, and this is when they become overloaded and overworked. Learning which projects and tasks can be outsourced and which ones require your input is a skill. By outsourcing jobs to other professionals, you’re freeing up your time to focus on more important jobs.
Here’s to a greater, more productive work year for you and your team!
If you find your workload increasing and think you may need to outsource, whether it be with content creation, branding and strategy, or community management, our team is here to help! Shoot us an email to book a consultation.
Managing social media over the holidays
Managing your social media presence over the holidays: what you can do now to plan ahead!
You’ve worked hard all year...you’re craving a holiday and can’t wait to take a break from corporate life. Phone on silent, cocktail in hand, feet dipped in the pool. Sounds like a dream...can we come?! But wait...what about your social media accounts? Who will look after them while you’re busy unwinding? Social media never sleeps and consistency is key. Correct! So, we’ve come up with some tips to help you manage your social media presence over the holiday season.
Plan, plan, plan. Planning ahead is key. Sure you’ll have to work your butt off up until your holiday break begins but you’ll definitely thank yourself later! Think of what you want to do and achieve over the holiday season. How many emails will you be sending out to subscribers? Are you launching a new product? Are you planning a huge sale? Write all this information down so you know what you’re striving for.
Create content now! Content creation takes time so set aside some one-on-one time with your camera and computer to put together some amazing content your followers will love. Having a bank of images ready to caption and schedule is invaluable come holiday time. Create some short, fun little videos to engage your audience. They’ll be sick of seeing ‘SALE’ images and baubles in every second photo on their social feeds, so grab their attention by giving them something new and exciting to look at.
Schedule away! Scheduling programs will be your godsend. They make life 110% easier. Facebook is great because it allows you to schedule content on the platform itself. For other social platforms like Instagram, you’ll need to use an external scheduling program to plan your content. Some examples include; Hootsuite, Later and Buffer. You will have to spend quite a bit of time adding each piece of content to the schedule, but your future self will forever be in debt when all you have to do is press ‘publish’.
Yes, a dream holiday would mean zero responsibilities and ever flowing cocktails but if you’re a business owner, you may have to succumb to checking your social accounts every now and then just to check in. Respond to comments, direct messages and do a bit of good ‘ol community management. 10-15 minutes out of your day isn’t so bad hey!
We hope these tips will help in the lead up to the Christmas period where all you want to do is relax!
Do you envisage this next month being a tough one? Do you think you’d prefer to have someone else manage your social accounts? Shoot us an email; we’d love to help!
Why you should invest in Facebook advertising
Are you a bit skeptical when it comes to paid advertising on social platforms like Facebook and Instagram? Well, we’re here to show you the bright side because there are 1.3 billion active daily users out there for you to engage with! Here are some reasons why we love Facebook advertising.
Facebook ads are great because they help your business attain additional reach and exposure, and they’re also ideal for targeting purposes. Amazing right?! Another great thing about Facebook ads is the fabulous feedback you receive. You’re given important insights into your current and potential audiences, and information like this will help you craft even better ads in the future!
Facebook advertising allows you to select your audience based on location, demographics, interests and behaviours. This is the biggest drawcard of Facebook advertising by far: its targeting capabilities. For example, if you’re a skincare brand based in NSW with a young audience, you can set your Facebook ads to target those with an interest in skincare, beauty, and fashion, who are between the ages of 18 and 25 and are based within as little as 10kms of your targeted area. You can’t get much better than that!
Cheap cheap...that’s another reason we like Facebook advertising. Although traditional methods of advertising like radio ads and billboards can be successful, they often break the bank and this is not what small or new businesses want. You set the budget on your Facebook ads, whether it be $5 for a weeks promotion or $500 (hey big spender!) Facebook will work to get you the best results possible for that amount.
Do you want to know what’s big right now in the Facebook ads world? Video ads. Facebook is heavily investing in video content to try and steal time and attention away from TV and online streaming sites (*cough* Netflix). On average, 100 million hours of video is watched on Facebook every day. Crazy right? Get on that video content stat!
Another fabulous thing about Facebook is that it is the leading network when it comes to purchasing decisions. 74% of consumers rely on social networks to guide purchase decisions so having your product/service sponsored for them to see is a great advantage!
So, Facebook advertising is pretty cool right! Have we convinced you to give it a go? We hope so!
If you want to craft some amazing ads for Facebook and your other social accounts, shoot us an email and we can lend you a hand.
Build your email database through social media
Is your email list looking a little dismal? Do you desperately want to turn your social followers into subscribers who will then become loyal customers? Sounds like a dream right? Not anymore! Here we share some of our top tips to building your email database through social media.
Share an incentive for those who subscribe
Make it worth their while for signing up! Many e-commerce stores offer a discount of 10%-20% on the next purchase. Alternatively, you could offer a free sample, a coupon or exclusive content. These are great ways to encourage people to subscribe because hey, who doesn’t love a discount or freebie!
Email only offers
Supplying exclusive, premium content in exchange for an email address is a tried and tested technique. For example, offering early access to a mid-season sale or a new e-book would be perfect. This creates excitement and a need to be ‘in the know’. Current subscribers might share this with their friends and family, which will lead to more subscribers. Winning! Additionally, to make this exclusivity known, make the followers on your social channels aware that they’re missing out on amazing offers. This should entice them to sign up!
Host a competition
Hello freebies! Hosting a giveaway is a great way to grow your subscribers. If you’re thinking about running the contest on Facebook, make the call to action a sign up to the mailing list. You can promote the competition on your other social channels too; just make sure to add a link to a page where the audience can subscribe. Here is one way to run the competition; anyone who provides his or her email address will receive a competition entry. You can also encourage your followers to share the competition with their network, possibly offering them additional entries for doing so.
Implement a Facebook sign-up button
If you haven’t already, you should add a sign-up button to your business Facebook page. This call to action button will take the user to a landing page on your website where they can subscribe to your mailing list. The sign up button is near the top of the page so its easily visible to your audience and they’re more inclined to click on it!
If you’re looking for a little more help when it comes to email marketing, shoot us an email and we can give you a helping hand.
Create, Credit, Copyright
Don’t get us wrong, the Internet is a wonderful platform that has leveraged marketing opportunities for thousands of brands and created a whole new industry for those creatively driven. However, it hasn’t come without some bad practices largely due to ignorance and laziness. If you haven’t figured it out by now, we’re talking about copyright.
Did you know that if you create something original, whether it be music, written work or a photo, your work is protected under Australian Copyright Law? This protection is instantaneous from the moment of creation and no copyright registration is required. What many people don’t realise is that this law extends to content that is posted to social media. Have you ever come across an Instagram #inspo account or seen a photo credited with ‘image via pinterest? If you have, then it’s likely you’ve come across content that is breaching federal legislation.
Social media, particularly Instagram, is a platform that encourages people to share content and inspiration. However, in some scenarios, people have taken the sharing culture a little too far by claiming other’s content as their own.
To ensure that you are following social media etiquette, we have put together a few tips that will help you to keep your feed honest, reputable and legal.
- Ask permission to regram the original content creator’s image by simply sending them a quick DM. Most people are more than happy for you to share their content as long as you tag them in the photo and credit them in the caption.
- Tag and credit! Be sure to always tag and credit the content creator in both the caption and the image tags. This way you’re never misleading anyone.
- If in doubt or you can’t find the original content creator, consider whether you really need to post that particular photo.
Why not have a go at trying to create your own content. We’ve shared plenty of handy tips and tricks in our ‘Mastering the #flatlay’ online course to help you get started.
Ten tips to leading a more productive life
Do you find yourself clicking your pen an hour after you sit down at your desk? Do you take a few too many coffee breaks just so you can escape the office? Here are ten tips to help you lead a more productive life both in the office and at home.
- To-do lists (tackle the toughest to-do first)
To-do lists help organize our chaotic lives, so start writing friends! Even better, write tomorrow’s to-do list today. Before you go to bed each night, jot down the list of jobs you want to complete tomorrow. You’ll have a head start for the following day! #winning
- Switch off
A good nights sleep is super important if you want to be a fully functioning adult the following day. Switching off your mobile phone will stop you from checking Instagram at 2am, leading to an amazing sleep. If you’re feeling daring, you could even leave your phone outside your bedroom (gasp!)
- Exercise regularly
Exercise is great because it gives us more energy (yay!) When you exercise, the brain releases serotonin, which stimulates positive moods and emotions. Exercise also increases blood flow to the brain, sharpening awareness and alertness.
- Set goals
Setting goals that are achievable yet difficult will help push you to greater success. Writing goals down on a piece of paper and making them visible everyday means you’re more likely to focus on achieving them!
- Start your day early
Okay so waking up at 5:30am might be a hard ask, but getting up when the sun does has its benefits. Completing tasks early in the day leaves you feeling accomplished by 10am and gives you the confidence to tackle the rest of the day. Not to mention you have the whole evening to relax!
- Organize your office space
Your environment is important factor when it comes to productivity. Try de-cluttering your desk, adding some plants and perhaps burning a candle. This will create an environment that makes you feel positive and creative.
- Stop multi-tasking
As much as we’d love to believe otherwise, it’s near impossible to do more than one thing at a time. Free your mind (and your desktop) of distractions so you can focus on one task at a time.
- Eat well
Eating well and drinking plenty of water is important for both our physical and mental health. A study by the British Journal of Health Psychology highlighted that the more fruits and vegetables people consumed, the happier, more engaged, and more creative they tended to be.
- Take frequent breaks
We’re all guilty of thinking we’re superhuman and that we’re able to sit at our desk working for four hours straight. Our brains can only function for so long so remember to take breaks throughout the day; stretch, grab a coffee, have a snack, or walk around the block. You’ll feel refreshed and ready to conquer the next task!
- Utilize your commute
If you use public transport to get to and from work each day, use the journey wisely. Instead of spending half an hour in the office checking emails, why not go through them on your commute. If you’re stuck in traffic driving to work, put on a podcast! Try Girlboss Radio with Sophia Amoruso.
We hope these tips help you overcome that slump of productiveness we all go through every now and then.
Do you have any productivity pointers of your own? Share them with us in the comment section below.
5 reasons to add greenery to your workspace
Have you always wanted to fill your workplace with terrariums and indoor plants? Well we're here to tell you, you should!
A number of scientific studies have proven the psychological and physical benefits of having plants in the office.
Here are five reasons to add some greenery to your workplace!
Reduced stress
Adding plants to the workplace has been known to reduce stress, as well as feelings of anger, depression and anxiety. Being in an environment with greenery present makes employees both calmer and happier.
Cleaner air
Air quality is significantly improved with the presence of plants as they help clear the air of chemicals. They decrease carbon dioxide levels and also assist in reducing dust levels.
Increased productivity
Research has shown that having plants in the office increases productivity among employees. Individuals perform cognitive tasks better, along with being more focused and having much better concentration. Employees also display greater creativity when plants are present in the office.
A better environment to be in
It is reasonably fair to say that plants make for a pretty great environment to be in. Along with their psychological benefits, plants make for a much more pleasant and tranquil environment to be in...and therefore work in!
Reduce sickness and absence
Having plants in the workplace can reduce sickness among employees as plants bring moisture back into the environment, which helps reduce the likelihood of headaches, sore throats and stuffy noses.
So which plants should you have?
There are a number of plants that will fit perfectly into the workplace! Here are some of the best indoor plants that thrive in low light, dry environments and will stay alive if you forget to water them every now and then (we’re all guilty of this!):
- Spider plant
- Snake plant
- Peace Lily
- Devil’s Ivy
- Succulents
- Cacti
As for the placement of plants in the office, this is dependent on the office conditions. If your workplace is blessed with large windows and natural light, you can essentially choose any of the plants listed above and put them wherever you like...lucky duck! If your office receives very little sunlight, you’re best to stick to plants like Peace Lily and Devil’s Ivy.
Do you have plants in the office already? Let us know your favourites in the comments below!
