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4 Instagram Tips To Make Your Business Successful

contact@lovemyonlinemarketing.com (Melody Jaimon) — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 03:21:41 GMT

If you're like us, you've probably had your head buried in your phone for the past hour scrolling through Instagram. You might be looking at pictures of friends and family, or maybe checking out some cool new fashion trends. But what if we told you there's a way to use Instagram to grow your business?

Instagram is a popular social network used by people all over the world. Instagram was originally released as an iOS mobile app, back in October 2010. As of April 2012, the Android version has been available for download on Google Play Store. The Instagram community is growing at a steady pace, and it now includes over 500 million active users, who share roughly 95 million photos everyday.

Whether you have a small business, eCommerce shop or are an entrepreneur, your social media accounts should be part of your digital marketing strategy.

Here are four Instagram tips that will help you improve engagement, build a loyal audience, and make your business more successful.

Tip #1 - Establish your brand’s “look” on Instagram

Whether you’re a seasoned social media marketer or just getting started, it is important to have a clear idea of the type of content that best suits your brand. It’s important to optimise your Instagram profile. In just 150 characters, your bio needs to make a great first impression. It needs to convey who you are and why people should be following your account. Choose an eye-catching profile picture, for most brands choosing their own logo as their profile pic is a good idea in order to give the account credibility. A good bio will allow followers to see at a glance who you are and what your brand represents.

Keep in mind that what works for one brand may not work for another. Maintaining a uniform visual style is important, but so are authenticity and approachability. As much as you want to stay uniform, the best thing to do is follow your own voice! Just be sure you maintain consistency with colour palette choices, fonts, tone of voice etc.

In order to build a consistent look, it's important to clearly define your business goals. Perhaps your goal is to create a successful online presence for your business, increase brand awareness, or sell products through the Instagram app. You may even want to combine several outcomes all at once! Whatever it is, having a clear idea of your goal will help you know what kind of content to produce.

Once you have your “look” down, all future posts should follow suit in order to not confuse followers with differing styles across your account.

Tip #2 - Make the most of Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories are a key part of any good Instagram marketing strategy. They provide an opportunity to connect with followers and build relationships while also providing that "continuous" feel that people are looking for from the social media accounts that they follow.

A third of the most viewed Stories on Instagram are posted by businesses, and they play an integral role in a solid marketing strategy. The nature of these short videos forces authenticity your followers want something that feels more real than what appears through curated posts, but it also provides them with content specifically tailored to their needs which helps maintain positive relationships with your audience.

Have a message in mind that you would love to share with the world. Think about what's important while keeping it engaging and creative. Aim to make an impact in the first 3 seconds of your video so you don’t lose any viewers. You can also create highlight albums to preserve your top Stories so they don’t disappear after 24 hours. Your highlights will appear under your bio and you have complete control over what you want the cover to look like.

If you're not already using Stories and Highlights, then we highly recommend giving them a go for your business account in order to maintain your presence on Instagram and increase your account engagement .

Tip #3 - Engage with other accounts

If you want engagement on Instagram, be sure to engage as well! Posting quality content is great but you are unlikely to see increased engagement if your account never responds or interacts with other profiles. Social Media is all about being social! Be sure to respond to any comments on your posts, and to comment on other relevant posts from other accounts. This lets people know that you are paying attention. Explore popular accounts within your niche and make yourself visible without being promotional. Find opportunities wherever they come up.

Tip #4 - Experiment with Instagram Reels

Reels is a new Instagram feature that lets you shoot, edit and share 60 second videos. Unlike Stories but very much like TikTok, Reels offers sophisticated video processing tools with an emphasis on editing features for those looking to make their social media content more interesting and creative.

The following are a few ways you can use Reels for your business.

You could make educational content, like showing off your product and how to use it or teaching people a quick tip. This will show that you have some knowledge in this area which could help others as well. You could make behind the scenes content. We all know how important it is for

businesses today to show their followers what they're up to. Maybe you've got a new product or service and want some feedback before launching it? You could also tap into trending content. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, tap into what’s happening now and make sure your business is current with all things Reels!

Brands should really take the opportunity to engage people who pr efer quick-and-easily digestible content such as Reels. Reels are a great platform for collaboration and using them can significantly increase your chance of showing up on the Explore page, which is one of Instagram's best discovery spots. If you’ve been feeling stuck in your Instagram growth, start making Reels as soon as possible. They are a great way for people to consume your content and engage with your social media account.

We hope that you now have more of an idea on how you could better be using Instagram to make your business successful. We would love it if you could share this Blog with your friends or colleagues who might also find this info interesting! If you have any questions about the topics we covered in this Blog, or other Digital Marketing questions, please don't hesitate to contact us !

If you are looking for more business ideas or advice, why not check out our other Digital Marketing Blogs on our Website. Thanks for reading.

Everything you need to know about the Pinterest Shopify App

Fri, 20 Aug 2021 05:33:50 GMT

We walk you through Pinterest, Shopify and their new app.

If you run ads for yourself or for clients, then it is probably safe to assume that you are advertising on Facebook, Instagram, or both. Facebook and Instagram have been the go to options for ecommerce businesses looking to get their products in front of a much larger audience. The ability to micro target audiences on these social media platforms is what helps to get your ad in front of the right people.

It’s getting more important nowadays for digital marketers to start looking into new advertising methods and new social media platforms. Both Facebook and Instagram are becoming more saturated and getting a lot more expensive. Of course there are ways to keep the cost of an ad down, you could come up with a well thought out bidding strategy, refresh your creative, use bid caps, or target overlapping audiences, but at the end of the day you can only do so much.

With Facebook ads being an auction-based advertising platform, it is only natural to see an upward trend in the ad price as demand for the advertising space increases over time. Advertising costs on both of these popular platforms are becoming more expensive.

What if there was another way? What if there was another platform that could drive ecommerce businesses and deliver similar results with less cost?

Here at Apex ad agency, we are constantly researching new creative ways to get our clients products and services in front of the right audience. While everyone has been doing their best to get their ads on either the Facebook or Instagram newsfeed, we have been looking into the exciting world and opportunities of Pinterest.

What you need to know about Pinterest.

Pinterest is a visual search engine. People use this platform to make mood boards, find inspiration for their lives, and shop for all types of products! 400 million people have saved more than 240 billion Pins across a broad range of interests. As an ecommerce business, you can create pins that link back to your website to share your products and ideas with the audience on Pinterest. More than half of all the user base of Pinterest login specifically to find products, and over 50% of Pinterest users say that they buy something after seeing a promoted pin a.k.a Pinterest ad. Believe it or not, but Pinterest is about four times more effective at generating sales than other social media platforms.

But wait, isn’t it a bit of a process to link Pinterest to Shopify?

In the not so distant past, linking Pinterest and Shopify was a job you would typically leave to someone who had a pretty good understanding of coding. It was complex and required you to add tags to the code of your website. Manually coding tags was a difficult and tedious process for those without too much development or coding experience. This is why it has been difficult for marketers without coding experience to break into the Pinterest market.

Stay with us now because this is where it gets interesting….

In 2020 Pinterest and Shopify created a partnership and released the Pinterest Shopify App. The app automatically creates a connection between the individual store and Pinterest. This hassle and stress free process is now seamless for businesses, and requires no code or development resources.

Simply install the Pinterest Shopify app, upload your product catalog, and publish Pins for the items that you are wanting to sell. That’s it! That’s how easy it is to link Pinterest and Shopify and start selling your already existing products on a platform with over 400 million active monthly users. Tracking the performance of your ad is also easy thanks to Pinterest Tags, and daily updates helping to keep your Pins up to date.

By just taking these steps mentioned above, you will help to increase your organic reach as people on Pinterest start to discover, save, and buy products from your website without you having to spend anything on advertising. The real magic happens with the promoted Pins. Promoted Pins allow you to reach even more people with strategies and campaigns that build awareness and get conversions.

If you are looking for higher conversion rates in 2021, then you need to be looking into the untapped Pinterest market as a viable option for advertising your products. Pinterest currently has a lot less competition in the advertising arena in comparison to the Social Media giants that are currently dominating the market. The Pinterest Shopify App now makes this integration effortless.The fact that Shopify is in partnership with Pinterest goes to show that they believe in the potential of Pinterest as a reputable platform to convert sales.

If you are looking for more info on the Pinterest Shopify App and how it can help boost your online sales, then feel free to contact one of our Apex team members today. Thanks for taking the time to read this blog, we hope that it has helped you understand a little bit more about the Pinterest Shopify App. We look forward to sharing more industry insights again with you soon, stay tuned to our social media to keep up with the latest in Digital Marketing.

5 Reasons Why You Should Be Using Facebook Ads

contact@lovemyonlinemarketing.com (Melody Jaimon) — Fri, 25 Jun 2021 04:28:01 GMT

Have you been considering whether or not you should be using facebook ads? If you are looking to increase engagement, establish long lasting relationships with your audience, and gain more sales, then read on.

As a facebook endorsed marketing partner, we thought it would be a good idea to highlight 5 reasons why you should be using facebook ads.

#1 - Customer Loyalty

A well thought out facebook page will help your customers feel like they are part of a community. When people feel like they are part of a community, you will most likely begin to see a higher retention rate. In general, people are looking for real connections with businesses and brands.

When a connection feels more real, it encourages better relationships between the customers and the businesses. Direct interaction with customers is an important step towards building your overall brand image and encouraging customer loyalty.

Facebook ads give businesses opportunities to engage with their customers at a greater level so that better relationships can be established.

#2 - Robust Analytics

Say goodbye to trying to guess what is working and what isn’t when it comes to your ads. Facebook gives you so many options when it comes to tracking and measuring your progress. Access metrics about which posts are performing the best, your reach, and post engagement. Get insights on sales, conversions, and clicks.

Facebook feels limitless with the reports and analytics explaining the performance of your ads. You will be able to find all your conversion rates and other social metrics laid out for you in Ads Manager.

You no longer have to spend time trying to determine these, all you have to do is read through it all and decide the best strategy for you to move forward based on these analytics. No more guessing and investing time and money into ads that aren’t working.

We have been in this industry for a while now, and we believe you won’t find powerful analytics like this elsewhere. If you can’t measure something, then you won’t really know where to make improvements.

#3 - Micro-Targeting

Facebook ads excel compared to other advertising platforms when it comes to targeting. For example, you are able to target based on behaviors, demographics, interests, connections, locations, and even languages. These are only a few options, the full potential of facebook ad targeting is impressive.

It is easily the best platform that we have used to dig deep and make the targeting super accurate. Another great feature is the ability to target your competitors’ audience. You can layer and combine to eliminate any users who aren’t in your target market.

It is important to focus on audience quality over quantity. Conversions are what we are all looking for, therefore you should be looking for the people who will most likely buy your product, and not just random visitors.

#4 - Easy to Scale

It’s amazing how much you can increase your reach with facebook ads. Ads allow you to reach more people than you were ever likely to reach organically in that same amount of time.

This means that it becomes easier to scale your marketing strategies. Eventually you will find an ad that converts well, you can then increase the budget on this ad until it no longer performs in the way that you want it to.

Another great feature on facebook ads is that you are able to create duplicate ads and target other segments of that same audience. It’s amazing what a little bit of an ad spend can do when you use it correctly.

#5 - Most people are on Social Media

As an individual, you may have your own particular views on social media. As a business owner, you may need to put some of those ideas aside. Businesses can not ignore facebook. People spend around 2.5hrs on social media each day, and facebook seems to be a favourite go-to.

If you don’t already have a business facebook page, then it may be time to follow the crowd. Set a facebook business page up and start running ads to get more people checking your page out. Your current customers are probably already on there, and your future customers are waiting to discover your brand.

If done correctly, facebook ads will take your business to new heights. Like anything worth knowing, there is a bit of a learning curve and ads manager may not seem very user friendly to start with.

If your business schedule doesn’t allow for the amount of time necessary to invest in learning these skills, but you still want to access the huge potential of running facebook ads, then feel free to contact us for a chat about how we can help you.

4 Social Media Tips to Boost your Presence Online

contact@lovemyonlinemarketing.com (Melody Jaimon) — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 04:35:23 GMT

All the tips unlocked for social media success below!

Before we dive into some tips to help boost your social media presence, I just want to make a point that communication is key when you are trying to captivate new and existing audiences.

It is important to communicate with your audience in a way that is simple and easy to understand. The aim is to avoid creating confusion in the mind of your audience. Confusion can stop people from engaging with your content, as it takes more effort for them to interpret what you are trying to communicate.

Why would someone spend their time and energy trying to figure out your message, when they can find a more refined social media account that is clear and concise in their communication?

One of the best skills to refine or perfect as a brand is your ability to communicate. This skill alone can help to improve your customer service, communicate to prospects, and help you engage your existing customers more, while laying the groundwork to reach new audiences. Good communication can create great relationships with potential customers, turning them into diehard loyal customers.

With all of that being said, let's get into 4 social media tips to help boost your presence.

Tip #1 - Make a content plan that is relevant to your audience.

Remember that your particular audience is unique. They will have specific wants and needs, and it is crucial for you to know and understand what these are before you can create content that is going to generate engagement and boost your presence.

It is important to research and familiarise yourself with information such as their age, gender, needs, behaviours, and pain points. Once you understand what it is that interests them, you can start creating content that is super relevant. In case you didn’t already know, the more relevant the content is to your audience, the higher the chances are of you receiving engagement, which in turn will boost your overall presence on social media. Knowing your audience is crucial when it comes to boosting your presence. Check your insights, browse through your followers accounts, take note of who they are following, and do your best to understand them as much as possible.

Tip #2 - Actively engage with your audience

In today's day and age, it's not enough to just post your content and walk away. Social media is about connection and engagement, if you're wanting to boost your presence, then you need to be able to gain the trust of your audience. Gaining the trust of your audience comes from nurturing and building relationships on social media platforms.

Content is super important, but you need to be doing more than just posting and then putting your phone down. There are many ways to engage with your audience. It is a good idea to stay in the loop with new features as they become available. This will ensure that you are optimising all engagement tools that are available to you.

Liking and commenting on a post is a great way to engage with your audience. When you comment, it is as if you have started a conversation. Keep that in mind, and keep your phone near you so that you can respond to any replies that people send you. The Instagram algorithm loves engagement, and favours activities such as replying to messages promptly.

Starting and participating in conversations is a winner when it comes to boosting your presence. Your audience will get to know you on a more personal level, that in turn will foster good relationships. Engaging on platforms 10-15 minutes before and after you post is a good way to get more engagement. Reply to people that have commented on your content, view and comment on their stories, and like content that is in line with the topic of your post.

Tip #3 - Try not to promote your products all the time

Rather than bombarding your audience with products and promotions, it’s best to work on engagement and communication. If people feel like they are always being sold to, then there is a chance that they will stop engaging.

The goal on social media is to provide information and content that helps your audience solve a certain problem that they may have. You become valuable when you can solve problems for people. The majority of your content should be focused around this, with about 20% focused on promotional communication.

Tip #4 - Maintain a consistent voice

This is probably one of the most important facts to keep in mind when creating your content to post. You must have a solid idea of the tone of voice that appeals to your audience. If you begin to post in language that your audience is not used to, then you may see a dip in your engagement. Finding the sweet spot with your tone of voice in your post is a fine balancing act. Take note of what captions are getting the most engagement, this will show you what tone of voice your audience is responding to. Be consistent with delivering your message in the same tone of voice with each post, and watch your engagement increase.

We have highlighted 4 key ways to boost your presence on social media, but keep in mind that there are definitely more than 4! Your social strategy, and what you are trying to achieve will determine your goals. Always keep your goals in mind, people are looking for consistency in their social media relationship, those that meet this requirement will most definitely boost their presence. Keep researching, exploring, learning, and take your engagement to the next level.