Lowell Brown, Author at Going Social

How To Use IGTV – Instagram’s Long Form Video App

Posted on Jul 26, 2018Jul 26, 2018 by Lowell Brown

On June 20, 2018 Instagram launched a new Long Form Video app called IGTV.

What makes IGTV an interesting option for sharing creative video?

How does it work with the regular Instagram app experience?

Should you use this new video sharing tool?

Find out the answers to these questions and the top ways to use IGTV to promote your brand and business in this post. Read on.

IGTV opened the ability for people with an Instagram account to share long form video. What exactly is long form video?

Basically it’s longer video clips. You no longer have to be constrained to 15 second story clips or one minute video post duration time limits. With IGTV you can share video up to 10 mins in length (Currently most accounts are limited to a 10 minute limit however some larger accounts may have the ability to post up to 1 hour in length). Rumours suggest that this 10 minute maximum time limit is temporary and eventually every account will be able to share clips longer but for now it appears most accounts are limited to up to 10 minutes.

What makes IGTV a unique video sharing platform?

First, the platform is focused on encouraging you to share tall (vertical) video. Not traditional wide (horizontal) video. This allows you to occupy the entire screen of a traditional mobile smart phone. The idea is that there is less to distract you from become immersed in each video clip. No on-screen comments or other visuals. The entire screen is for the video content.

Second, IGTV is meant for mobile video viewing. As of the time of this blog post, IGTV content can only be viewed from a mobile phone. This is also unique from other platforms like Facebook and YouTube.

Interestingly, you can see your own IGTV content and upload videos via desktop but you can only see other peoples IGTV content through the Instagram and IGTV apps.

Third, the fact that IGTV is mobile only raises and interesting consideration in terms of viewer analytics. You will know that your content is consumed 100% from mobile, so you won’t have to consider if people watch it more on mobile vs. Desktop.

So, now that you understand the basics of what IGTV is and what makes it unique, let’s jump into how to get started.

Create Your IGTV Channel

Getting Started – How To Setup Your IGTV Channel

Download the app – Currently IOS only
When you launch the app it will ask you to login with your Instagram account name and password.
Click on the settings tab and you will see “Create Channel”
It’s that simple. Now you can select and upload videos to your channel.

The idea is to give yourself or your brand your own channel. Your own space to create and share video that’s longer, longer than a 15 second story clip or longer than a one minute Instagram post.

IGTV – Facts and How To’s:

IGTV videos are featured on your profile. If you have recorded a IGTV video to your channel it will be featured in your profile.

With IGTV, you do not record video within the app, like you do with Instagram. You first record the video (edit if you need to) then upload the video from you iPhone to your channel. This gives you the option to get creative on how you create your video and gives you time to prepare more professionally produced clips, if you choose to go that route.You can, for example, create video with more professional equipment, edit on your computer and then copy to your phone to upload to your channel. Obviously that’s a lot more work than simply recording a video with your phone, but it’s an option if you want to put more work into your channel videos.

You can upload video via desktop. Just login to your instagram account, go to your profile, click the “IGTV” tab and press the “upload” button.

You can link a Instagram story post to an IGTV video. It’s different than sharing. You have to create a story, but there is a new “link” button but there is a catch, If you share a link in your story it will display a “swipe” note at the bottom of the clip, but this also removes the ability to add comments on the stories clip.
You can add an active link in the video description. When you create a new video you can include a link in the description that works. This is something that does not work for regular Instagram posts.

Use Hashtags in your video description. One of the best ways to have your video content discovered is by including hashtags in your video description. Just like posts on Instagram, IGTV videos are searchable by hashtags and keywords.

You can edit the video title and description after it’s posted…but only via Desktop. This is one of those ninja pro tips. As many people will only post via mobile it would appear that you can’t edit the title or description once you have posted it, but you can. Just login via desktop, click on your profile, click on IGTV, select the video and edit.
Watching IGTV videos is easy. You can scroll stories (videos) by scrolling left to right. Videos autoplay When one ends, another begins.

Limited video stats are available. You can see stats by clicking the 3 dots next to the like, comment, share buttons. Click “View Insights”. Currently you can review engagement stats such as number of video views, likes and comments as well as audience retention – the percentage of the video watched.

You can share your video to your Facebook Page. When you share your video it will show like a regular post on Facebook. It does not share the IGTV video as a Facebook Story and does not stand out to show that it’s an IGTV post – so there is no cross branding to drive traffic to your IGTV channel.

IGTV is currently ad-free. One nice element is that you don’t get bombarded with ads while watching or browsing videos, but you gotta think it’s only a matter of time…

Pro Tip from @JennHerman: Instagram Live videos saved to your device (even if shorter than 10 minutes) don’t appear in the gallery of videos to upload. A workaround for this is to save the live video to another folder on your device (for example, save it to your Google Photos folder).

So here is my question to you. If you had your own channel, what would you talk about? What info can you share that will help other people? What content can you share that will make you stand out as a thought leader in your own industry?
Let me know in the comments below.

How to Cleanup your Facebook Profile and Privacy Settings

Posted on May 23, 2018 by Lowell Brown

With all the publicity surrounding Facebook’s information leaks, along with a better public awareness of what information Facebook is collecting about you and your activity on the platform, I decided to do a little spring cleaning of my own account and pages. With the goal of having the best experience on Facebook, I also wanted to safeguard the information that I’m sharing with the public and third parties.

Here are some reasons you may want to have a look at your Facebook profile and the way your information is set up.

Remove unwanted access. You likely have selected to share your personal data with third-party sites and apps. Some of these you may never plan to use or have stopped using. You might want to consider removing access to any apps that share your data to protect yourself.
Review your privacy settings. Facebook is constantly adding and changing platform features, and that means that information you may have selected to share in the past could lead to exposure of your data in ways that you originally didn’t think was possible. Periodically review and adjust settings to protect your data.
Friends and followers cleanup. This is something I have done every year or so. You likely have met people, made new contacts, and added clients or customers to see or access your Facebook shared content, but as your network evolves and changes it may be that you no longer want all of these people to see what you are sharing. Review your friends and followers and clean out what you are sharing with whom. This is also commonly referred to as “unfriending.” It’s okay…you can remove people.
Clean up images. Have a look at the images you have shared on Facebook in the past. Are there photos you no longer want to keep accessible on your profile? Here is your chance to tidy things up and remove any photos that you no longer want to display.
Review tags – You may have been tagged in a post or tagged at an event which may or may not be shared on your profile. Depending on your privacy settings, you may or may not want this public. Take this chance to look at where you’re tagged and remove any that you don’t want to share.
Groups – Have you looked at groups you have joined which you may not want to be a part of anymore or receive notifications from?
Page likes – What pages have you liked in the past? There is a way to look this up, and it’s possible you may want to “unlike” some that you’re no longer interested in. What you like and who you interact with on the platform can affect what you see in your feed as well as the types of ads you are exposed to.
Profile Cleanup. Look at what information you have shared on your profile, this can include your interests, music, likes, etc. Again this can affect what you see in the feed and which ads you see.

These are all great places to start looking at some of the overall elements you might want to clean up.
Next, let’s look at the steps involved in updating and cleaning up your settings and information.

A quick place to start:

Click the white down arrow on the top right corner of the screen
Select “News Feed Preferences”
This allows you to set the ability to see posts from specific people, pages, or groups first, to unfollow people, and more.

Profile details:

Click the circle icon with your picture. This will bring up your Facebook profile. At the top, in the middle of the cover photo, you will see a button for “Edit Profile.” Select that.
Here you can adjust your profile and cover photo image, edit, or add a bio. Adjust pictures people can see, and then you get into personal data like work history, location, and other personal details that you want to share.

Contact info:

Go through each of the “About” tabs and verify that the information there is relevant and up to date. If you don’t want to share any of the data that is there, just delete it.
This is where you’ll want to review your email address, links to your website, Skype number, and any other details that need to be updated and/or made private.

Personal Facebook Profile Data

Other details:

Continue reviewing your profile and look at videos/photos, removing anything you don’t want or making them private.
Check-ins – you can remove some if you don’t want to share them, or they’re not relevant anymore.
Pro tip – to remove a checked-in location – click on the date that displays when you checked in > click “Edit” > delete the text in the “Location” box.
Continue to review your profile in the “Details About You” and “Life Events” to hide or delete details such as:
- Sports
- Music
- Movies
- TV shows
- Books
- Facebook pages you have liked
- Groups

Friends List

This is always a tricky topic for people to deal with, but for me, it comes down to looking at contacts and deciding if there are people that you may have added that you no longer want to keep part of your inner circle.

If there are people you no longer want to share your posts with – or – people whose content you no longer want to see, consider unfriending them. You may have your profile set up to allow people to “Follow” you, so even if you unfriend someone they may still be able to see your updates.

Privacy Settings

At the top right of the screen click the down arrow then click “Settings.”
Look at what you have set up under “Privacy” and “Timeline and Tagging”
Another category to pay attention to is “Apps and Websites.” This section shows a list of apps and websites you have allowed to connect to your Facebook profile. I strongly recommend you REMOVE any app or website you do not actively use, or haven’t used in a long time. In addition, I recommend you “View and Edit” each app – this allows you to add/remove what data third parties are allowed access from your Facebook profile. I have adjusted almost ALL of the connected apps – most of which I’ve removed any access that allows them to see my friends list, photos, or places I’ve been to. If any of that data does not impact how you use that app or site, don’t share the info.
Do the same for ‘Business Integrations”

FB App Review Access

Doing a clean-up of your Facebook account, or any other social platform is never a bad idea. You might be surprised how this can help streamline and tidy up your Facebook Newsfeed, and it’s always great to protect your own data and become aware of what other people can see and access.

If you found this blog post helpful, please share it on your favourite social platform. I’d also love to hear your ideas and suggestions, so please leave me a comment below!

Instagram Announces Hashtag and Profile Links in account Bio

Posted on Apr 9, 2018Apr 9, 2018 by Lowell Brown

Instagram has been busy lately with many new feature announcements. One that has a lot of people buzzing is the announcement that you can now have Hashtag and Profile Links in your account Bio.

What exactly does this mean and how should you make use of these features? Keep reading to find out my top tips.

Image from https://instagram-press.com/blog/2018/03/21/introducing-hashtag-and-profile-links-in-bio/

Instagram describes the feature release as a “new way to express yourself and the things you care about.” So, how does this feature work? Now, when you include a # or @ in your bio, they can become live links that lead to either a list of recommended hashtags or to the account you target.

Essentially not a ton has changed here. You could always add hashtags to your bio and include other account usernames but they previously didn’t link out. Now they can. And this can be a good thing…if used smartly.

What. What? How is this NOT a good thing? Wouldn’t I want to add as many hashtags to my profile as possible?

Keep in mind your total character limit for your bio has not changed. You have the same amount of space to play with, so my advice is still to use this wisely.

In December, Instagram announced the ability to follow hashtags on Instagram. This meant that you could click a hashtag used in a post and either find other posts (related posts) that have used the hashtag or actually follow that hashtag and see other posts with that hashtag in your feed. You can essentially now do the same thing from your bio.

But again I caution you to use this wisely. If you are using a branded hashtag this makes perfect sense to add to your profile. A branded hashtag is something unique to you or your company brand. A theme of topics that you exclusively use to promote your own stuff. This makes it easy for people to find your own related posts and keeps it related to your brand or personal identity. Posting any general and highly used hashtag is not as benefitial for this purpose. As Jenn Herman recently pointed out “Why would you want to share a hashtag that will take people away from your own content or potentially to your competitors?” A general hastag like #foodblogger doesn’t really add value to your bio.

Kitkat Branded hashtags

Will adding hashtags to your bio help people find you in search?
While adding a hashtag to your bio in general can help you be found for a specific topic it hasn’t really been proven to make a difference in terms of the overall algorithm. As this is a new feature change we also don’t know how this will affect search and how you can potentially be found. My advice again is to focus on making your bio about you and as relevant as possibly to your own brand or business goals.

What happens if you @ feature another person or account?
If you @ tag another person on Instagram they will get a notification you have tagged them. This can allow that individual the ability to remove the link to their bio if they, for whatever reason, do not want to have that link be active on your profile.

Can encouraging people to tag my account in their bio help me attract new followers?
I have already seen people trying to use this feature to expand their brand and marketing reach. I’ve seen people use this as a type of “contest” feature hoping that having many many people link to them will help others discover their account. With respect to the possible benefits for reach or search via the algorithm there is no specific benefit to helping you be found in search. In addition, think about how often people actually look at your bio. It’s probably only when they are looking at your account for the first time. As you have a limited amount of space on your own bio I’d use that space to the maximum of my own benefit and concentrate on keeping that content relevant to my own business or brand. I’d recommend only linking to some other account if it’s related to your brand or business. For example, in my personal instagram account I link out to my business instagram account. That’s related, relevant and helps people find my own other accounts.

If you haven’t looked at or updated your Instagram bio in a while, now is a good time to take a quick look and see if you can/should add any links to accounts or hashtags. For now, I recommend using these new features if it’s beneficial to your own business goals, brand or personal identity.

5 Facebook Reach Hacks To Improve Visibility Of Your Posts

Posted on Aug 29, 2017Feb 12, 2018 by Lowell Brown

It’s no secret. Organic reach on Facebook is at an all-time low. Many people are seeing a reach of around 2% – 6% or lower. Yes. The reality of organic posting on your Facebook page is that only a small number of the people who have liked your page will see your posts. So what can you do about it? Here are 5 recommendations to help you maximize reach and improve visibility of your posts.

Post/schedule within Facebook natively
This is not proven 100% to make an impact on reach of your posts, but we recommend posting and scheduling posts right within Facebook vs. using a 3rd party tool. Facebook has a history of ranking things within it’s own platform favourably. Why take a chance? Facebook’s own scheduling tool is great. We recommend using it or posting directly within the platform instead of using a third-party tool.
Post video files directly within Facebook
Several people have tested and proven that you will receive better reach (and engagement) for video posts if you post the actual video on Facebook (posting the actual video file to Facebook as opposed to sharing a video that was posted on YouTube). If you want even greater reach (visibility) of your video consider posting the video LIVE.
Set a goal to create posts that people will share
Shareability is how you can extend reach of your posts to a much larger audience. The more people share your posts, the more they will be seen by other people. Those people, if they also like the content, will Like, Share and Comment. The more likes, comments and shares a post has, the more people will see it and have the possibility of going viral.
Post LESS frequently
Yes. I’ll say it again. Post LESS frequently. Instead of worrying about posting MANY posts, post less, but better quality. Ensure the posts you share are all of high-quality content, targeted at your audience. If your content is likely to resonate (and be of interest) to your audience, it’s likely to get more comments, shares and likes.
Pick your best posts and make Facebook Ads out of those posts
Here’s a shocker. Facebook rewards those that pay. Yup, if you have a solid post and are willing to put some money behind it, Facebook will game their own newsfeed and show it to more people. Not only that, with ads, you can help ensure the ad is targeted at a specific audience group – if you target effectively, you will hit the right audience – an audience interested in your post that will stop and like, comment and share.

Do you see a trend here? Post less frequently. Create posts that will be of interest to your audience. Create posts with the goal of getting people to act and react to your post. Pay to extend reach on your best posts (you don’t have to spend a lot to get a lot). Doing this will help you attract more Likes, Comments and Shares and the more you attract, the better reach your posts will receive.

If you like this post, feel free to like, comment and share it as well! Let me know your thoughts.

Everything You Need to Know About A Business Instagram Account

Posted on Aug 11, 2017Feb 13, 2018 by Lowell Brown

There are over 300 million Instagram users that are active every single month. Instagram has become a place where businesses can streamline their brand, network with potential customers, build customer loyalty, and so much more. While on Instagram, people share photos and videos that tell more about their business and brand. Instagram has taken the business world by storm and perfectly complements any marketing plan.

Recently, Instagram began allowing users to switch their account from a regular Instagram account to a business account. There are positives and negatives to making this change (keep reading and you will see why), however, we first want to show you how to make the switch!

Simply go to your profile, and under account settings, you will see an option called “Switch to Business Profile”. Click that!

Next, you will be asked to log into Facebook within the app.

You will then connect your account to the Facebook account.

(Note, you must have a Facebook Business Page to create a Business account on Instagram.)

You must already be an administrator of the page you want to connect. Facebook will ask you a few questions, such as which information you want to take from the Facebook page.

You are finished! It was that easy! You now have a Business Instagram account.

What are the best features about an Instagram business account?

Firstly, you will now have a contact button that appears on your profile. When a user clicks on it, they will have the option to email you, call you, or find your location on a map.

Secondly, you now have an overall view of your posts by going to your profile and selecting the Insights icon, which is located at the top right of the screen.

Thirdly, creating ads is easier than ever with a business account. You can access them through Facebook advertising.

Why would you not want to switch to an Instagram business account?

Firstly, you will be labelled as a business account. That’s not always a bad thing, however it may make people see you as a business, rather than on social media to build relationships.

Secondly, if you make the switch, you become Instagram’s primary target market, and you need to pay. This may cause you to say goodbye to your organic reach. They no longer want you to receive free business, they now want to you to pay for it through advertisements.

Thirdly, you may lose visibility. For example, do not notice on Facebook that your personal profile receives more reach than your business one? This is the same for Instagram.

There are both pros and cons to converting your Instagram account to a business account. Although it can be extremely beneficial, there still are some cons you may want to consider. For more information on marketing your business on Instagram, contact us today!

Social Account Audits – Why it’s important

Posted on Jul 27, 2017Feb 13, 2018 by Lowell Brown

When was the last time you looked over your various social media account profiles? I’m referring to both your personal as well as business accounts.

Let me say that again – both personal AND business.

Why both?
Why is this important?
Isn’t it enough that you just have an account setup?

In this blog article I’ll explain:

why it’s essential that you do a social media account and profile audit for BOTH personal and business accounts at least every three months
what you should look out for
how doing this exercise will help you stay at the top of the minds of your friends and contacts, so you can grow your professional reputation and business success

Here are our top five reasons for doing an audit to your social accounts:

1. Social platforms change rapidly
Depending on how active you are with your social media marketing, you may or may not be aware that the platforms are constantly and continually evolving. Facebook alone is known to make changes weekly, if not more frequently. Many of the social platforms don’t tell users about all of these changes either. More importantly, if you are not actively looking to stay in the know about these changes you may not ever notice.

The most significant changes that can affect how you “look” on social platforms are the changes to the platform User Interface or UI. Almost every platform has changed their UI in the last year. What does this mean for you? For one, your profile pictures and cover photo may need to be adjusted if the size of the image area has changes. Also, Facebook sometimes changes how information is displayed over a Page cover photo. If you have text on your cover photo it may now be covered by text or even buttons.

In addition to image changes, sometimes the platforms will change what information is actually visible on your profile. There may be more options for you to include additional information – so make sure you are checking frequently!

2. You own personal info has likely changed (job, interests, photos)
Your business grows and evolves, as do some of your own interests. Have a look at your company bio and links (maybe you are no longer using a specific social media platform – why link to it if you don’t actively use it?). Look at your summary, job history and other details on LinkedIn. Have a look at your Twitter bio and consider what you might change? Facebook (your personal profile) is a trove of collected information. Not only do you possibly have “friend” connections you might want to purge, but you likely have pages you liked a long time back that you might want to clear out, groups you want to “unjoin” etc. Facebook is known to use this data to help target ads to users and clearing this info out might help you to no longer see some annoying ads that you have zero interest in.

3. People connect with YOU First – then your business

I mentioned earlier that reviewing your “personal” profiles along with your business profiles is important. Many people don’t consider that it’s the person behind a business that people really want to connect with. You may not realize that people are looking at, and may try to connect with, or follow you on your personal profiles as well. Have a look at your account bios, cover photos, even the type of content you are posting and sharing. Is your account public or private? You might want to consider making an adjustment depending on how you connect with your customers and the type of relationship you want to create. This is a great segway to point number four.

4. How you use social accounts may have changed – private or public

For your personal accounts, have a look at the content you are sharing publicly. Do you want your customers or potential customers to see this info? How much personal info do you want to share with the world? I’m not going to tell you whether you should go private or public – that’s a personal decision you have to make – I’m just suggesting you think about it and that will help you stop and think before posting on selected accounts.

5. Your accounts may be linked

Another factor to look at is if you have social accounts connected to each other. By this I don’t mean whether or not you have LINKS to each social profile on each platform. What I’m referring to here is whether or not you have them linked to cross promote your posts. Many people used to connect their platforms, for example, to save time people would connect Twitter posts to automatically post the same content (tweet) onto Facebook. My recommendation is to break these ties. Both the audience on each platform as well as the structure and use of the platforms are very unique. Twitter for example is limited to 140 characters, while Facebook allows for a much longer post. People on Facebook also don’t like to see as many hashtags as one might use on Twitter. On that note, hashtags are still very popular on Instagram, but if you use 20 – 30 on a given post on Instagram, you won’t want to post that exact post to Facebook. It makes sense to post on each platform independently.

Here are a few other small things to look for:

Make sure your contact information is up to date
Look for messages you may have missed (your Facebook inbox, Twitter direct messages)
Look for new invite or connection requests
Check notification settings on each platform – these may have changed
Check to see if there are software updates for apps for iPhone/Android so you have latest features

If you haven’t taken a look at your social platforms in a while, we hope you will consider doing a review so you can be sure you are putting you best image forward to both your friends and clients.

You’ll likely find a few things you can change or improve. Sometimes these changes (such as changing a profile cover photo) can be published in your feed and that can be used to your advantage as another way to have your audience see an update from you.

Let us know in the comments if you have found something else you’ve deemed important to review with your own social accounts and how we can help you do a social account audit.

4 Social Management Software Platforms Reviewed

Posted on Jul 7, 2017Feb 13, 2018 by Lowell Brown

In today’s technology-driven world, social media makes it easier for companies, especially small businesses with limited resources, to unlock consumer insights to drastically enhance the company’s ability to increase revenue. With our clients’ wants and needs always in mind, we strive to find high quality resources, while keeping within the client’s budget parameters. This is why for many of our clients we have been using several different social media app platforms. While they all offer similar features and pricing, we tend to use Hootsute for clients who are small, new to social media, or have a minimal budget. Until recently, Hootsuite offered a free version; however, now their free plan limits the number of posts that can be scheduled in advance. Since our company’s process is to help clients plan a content schedule a month in advance, it is more efficient to use a platform that has the capability to schedule thirty days out and still offers the lowest price possible.

With the change in Hootsuite’s pricing, additional social media platforms have been reviewed to determine if upgrading to Hootsuite’s pro plan ($19/month) provides the most benefits to clients, or if a better alternative exists. Ultimately, we decided to utilize Buffer (link to company website) (at their “Awesome” plan level for $10/month) for many clients that previously used Hootsuite.

What follows is a quick review of the features of some of the top platforms and their corresponding pricing levels.

Buffer
Buffer strives to get the most out of each social media post by optimizing the time of day the post goes up to increase the opportunities for fans and followers to view the post. Users can also request Buffer to upload their social media posts automatically; so that they can enter their posts for a given time period and not have to log back in each day to upload them. One of Buffer’s unique features, and what sets it apart from competitors, is its browser extension and downloadable mobile app. With these add-ons, users are able to make updates anytime, anywhere.

Buffer offers users a free fourteen day trial to begin. If you are satisfied and want to continue using this platform, the pricing levels are:
• Individuals – free for one social media account
• Awesome – $10/month for up to ten social media accounts
• Small – $99/month for up to twenty-five social media accounts
• Medium – $199/month for up to fifty social media accounts
• Large – $399/month for up to 150 social media accounts

Hootsuite
Possibly the best known of the social platform companies, Hootsuite offers an extended thirty day trial to reel customers in. Hootsuite offers users many similar features found on other platforms including: scheduling, content curation, analytics, and social media topic monitoring. Hootsuite is unique to offer the ability for posts and comments to be delegated to specific team members. They also provide the ability to host social media contests across multiple networks and platforms.

Hootsuite’s plans include:
• Professional – $10/month for up to ten social profiles (1 user)
• Team – $99/month for up to twenty social profiles (up to 3 users)
• Business – $499 for up to fifty social profiles (up to 10 users)
• Custom solutions at the Enterprise level are also available

Agorapulse
AgoraPulse is another marketing software platform that allows clients to run in-store promotions, generate coupons, and identify engaged users. AgoraPulse manages social media messages with an inbox feature that captures customer’s questions and comments so that customers are well-served. Many international and billion dollar companies, such as Volkswagen, Pepsi, Yahoo, and McDonald’s, use this platform to monitor social media responses. In a comparison between AgoraPulse and Hootsuite, users reported high satisfaction ratings: 100% satisfaction rating with AgoraPulse to Hootsuite’s 99%.

AgoraPulse is a little more expensive than most other platforms for less social media accounts, but all plans include: scheduled posts, Chrome extension, mobile app, content queue, drag and drop content scheduling, evergreen content management, automated moderation, and Facebook ROI calculator.

Package costs are:
• Small – $49/month for up to three social profiles (1 user)
• Medium – $99/month/month/month for up to ten social profiles (up to 3 users)
• Large – $199 for up to twenty-five social profiles (up to 6 users)
• Enterprise – $299/month for up to forty social profiles (up to 12 users)

MavSocial
If the client needs to interact with other potential clients using visual content MavSocial may be the marketing software best suited to their needs. MavSocial offers users a Digital Library that coordinates with other important features. These features provide brand-based permissions and the ability to add stock images acquired through the platform. This platform is used across a wide array of company sizes and industries. They serve small to medium sized businesses, as well as large enterprises in a number of areas: educational agencies, financial services, healthcare, hospitality, retail, and eCommerce. This makes them very flexible to meet the client’s particular needs. MavSocial supports both infrastructure work and campaign-based social media marketing. This means that the platform is able to create, publish and monitor social media marketing and also rise to the challenge of supporting a complex social media campaign. When a company uses this platform for a campaign, they are able to measure the performance with the platform’s reporting functionality. MavSocial also has many custom scheduling features that can be personalized to meet the user’s needs.

MavSocial offers a free trial and the following pricing options:
• Small Business – free for up to two social profiles (1 user)
• Advanced – $19/month for up to ten social profiles (1 user)
• Pro – $59/month for up to fifty social profiles
• Agency – $199/month for up to fifty social profiles (up to 3 users)
• Customization is available

All of the social media scheduling apps reviewed in this article were designed to alleviate some of the stress and time it takes to manage across multiple social media accounts. These apps also provide customer analytics that can be used to create engaging social media campaigns. When analytic data is available, businesses can direct their marketing efforts to effectively increase customer engagement and revenue.

Because each platform provider offers similar features and pricing packages, we discuss the specific needs of each client in order to choose the platform that works best for them and their budget. If you’re ready to drive business growth by implementing strategic social media marketing initiatives, fill out a Contact Form and one of our Social Media Advisors will be in contact with you within 24 hours.

Social Marketing Success Starts with Setting Goals

Posted on Mar 21, 2017Feb 13, 2018 by Lowell Brown

Are you seeing the results you hoped for from your social media marketing efforts?

Are you having trouble measuring your social marketing ROI (return on investment)?

In this article, I’ll explain why so many people answer “no” to the questions above and I’ll offer strategies you can take to avoid this frustration.

Set Your Goals

One of the first questions I ask clients is “What are your social media goals?” and “What are your objectives?”.

Most of the time the answers I get are “I don’t know” or “we haven’t thought about it.”

Many people are so focused on just doing social that they forget to think strategically about why they are doing it or what they want to achieve.

Without setting goals for what you want to achieve, you have a limited number of opportunities to measure how effective your strategies are. I find many people are strictly focused on how many fans and followers they have. Fan and followers to your various social accounts are important, but numbers alone are not the most important goal you should be focused on.

If I could get 10,000 fans to your page, that might make you happy. But if I told you they were all located in the Philippines, Russia or India, while your target market was Toronto, Canada, that would not help you at all. You’re not likely to get any sales generated from this market if you have a local-focused business in Toronto, as one example.

Don’t get me wrong, having quality fans and followers is important. But, I emphasize QUALITY.

One of most important goals you should have is to attract a fanbase that’s interested in your products or services, are in your target market, and who are willing and able to engage with you.

Notice another important aspect that makes social media marketing….well….social – engagement. The first thing you need is an audience. You need to work on building that audience and this will take time and effort.

How do you find the audience? Start by trying to define your target market.
Where do they live? How old are they? What are their interests or what additional interests are related to your product or service?

Here is an example. Let’s say you run a small local coffee shop. Who is your target market (audience)? They are likely people that live within 5-10 KM of your location(s). Age range is likely pretty broad, let’s say 16 – 65+. You know they like coffee, tea, espresso, hot chocolate and likely small pastries. You can also consider what people do in a coffee shop – talk, socialize, read the paper, work, etc.

This is just a start but doing an exercise like this will help you figure out not only what interests your audience and how to target their interests, but also what content you can share on social media posts to get them to notice, participate, and engage with you.

How does this relate to your goals? Again it’s important to think about ways you can measure results of your social media efforts.

If measuring the number of followers is not enough, think about measuring growth of engagement on posts. How many comments, likes, and shares do you get? What type of posts are of most interest to your audience? How frequently do you need to post to get more engagement or “reach” (defined as the number of people in your audience that actually see your posts).

So let’s circle back to the important question that I think you should review every 30 days: What are your social media marketing goals?

Think about what you want to accomplish. Be specific.

Here are some additional questions that can assist you in setting specific and measurable goals for your social media initiatives:

Do you want to attract a certain amount of new fans? How many did you attract last month? How many will you attract this month?

Do you want to increase the amount of likes, comments and shares to your various posts? How many on average per post? What can you do to encourage fans and followers to engage with you?

Do you want to collect email addresses from a promotional campaign you are running? How many email addresses will you collect this month?

Do you want to attract website traffic? How much traffic came from your social accounts last month? How much of an increase in website traffic do you want to achieve this month?

Do you want to attract sales for a specific promotion you are running? How are you going to track sales from social specifically?

Are you trying to build engagement on a specific social platform? If yes, what are you going to do to attract more users to that account?

These are just some questions that I commonly ask my clients to help establish specific, measurable, 30 day goals. There are many different components to consider with your social marketing efforts. It’s key to think about what’s most important based on other marketing initiatives you may have for your organization.

Once you have your goals set, you can next look at what you can do to help achieve these goals. You can also start to consider how your post calendar needs to include focused content and topics to help you meet or exceed your goals.

Once you have your goals, strategy and content calendar organized, you’ll have something to track over the next 30 days. You can then review and evaluate what strategies worked and what changes you need to make in the next 30 days.

If setting goals and tracking results is something you struggle with I’d recommend considering contacting a social media expert. Look for someone who is able to understand your business and able to work with you one-on-one or in a group setting to help you to set realistic goals and strategize ways to meet those goals.

I hope this blog post has helped you consider other components of your strategy that you may want to focus on. If you have specific strategies that have worked for your organization, I’d be happy to hear your ideas in the comments below.

Is Google+ Useful or a Waste of Time?

Posted on Mar 8, 2017Feb 13, 2018 by Lowell Brown

It’s always a question I get asked. What social media platforms should I be using? More recently, I’ve had numerous clients and prospects asking “What do you think about Google+? Is it worth it, or a waste of time?

My take on the social platform

Let me start with a statement I say to EVERY client I speak with: It’s best to pick the one or two platforms that will net you the best ROI for your efforts. Focus on those first, then branch out. That said, is Google+ one of the first you should focus on? In my opinion – no. That leads to the second question – is it worth the time and effort? Can it help my business? Does it help with SEO?

I’ll attempt to answer those questions in this blog post.
This article won’t cover the features of Google+, some of which are great. It is meant to point out if it’s RIGHT for some businesses.

Google+ started with buzz, like many other Google products. People liked some features of it that made it unique, like the concept of “circles” instead of followers and it’s tie with other Google tools. People were also attracted to the clean user interface. What was lacking, and still is, is the dedicated audience. The social platforms that excel are those that people use. What’s the point of spending your time in a space where people don’t interact or view what you are posting?

Over the past few years, Google has attempted to further enhance the platform with numerous changes: layout redesigns, feature changes and more….but is it enough?

The good and bad about Google+

Some user stats about Google+ include:

74% male
55% users are from US
4% from Canada

There are discrepancies on the user base of Google+ and some say it’s about 9% of Google’s overall use based (under 200 million).

Are numbers important? Not always.
If you have a small base, but that base is highly engaging or effectively serving your goals – then great – the platform can work for you. But if you are posting and posting, with no interaction or traffic from the platform….is it working for you?

BUT consider that Google+ still has a strong tie to getting found for search results. Every bit of activity that you do on Google+ awards you points, increasing your SEO value. User-created content on Google+ is indexed for search, unlike other social media platforms, where privacy concerns win over the indexing process.

My take on all of this – focus on where your audience is. Facebook is still one of the largest used social platforms and Instagram and SnapChat are both booming. LinkedIn is still the B2B powerhouse and while some like Twitter and some don’t, it isn’t going away.

Focus your time where your audience is. If a specific platform isn’t driving traffic, isn’t getting engagement, isn’t helping you promote your products and service, isn’t where your voice will be heard, don’t waste your time. Find the right place and play there.

What’s your opinion? I’d love to hear your experience with this platform and how you use it. Share your comments below.