She Owns It

Celebrating, Connecting, and Supporting Women Entrepreneurs

4 Keys To Better Social Media Engagement by @XLConsultingGro

by Leave a Comment

by Elaine Slatter | Featured Contributor

Would you like to get more social media engagement?  Of course, you would, and so do millions of businesses.  The social media space is getting more and more crowded every day.  We can’t be all things to all people because that just doesn’t work for engagement.   So, what are the four key tips to help you with social media engagement?

Community

Your community will help with your social media engagement if they become loyal followers of you and your company’s brand.  Take your time to develop your own community.  How do you do this?  Map out your ‘why’.  The reason your company does what it does.

For example, Toms is not just a shoe company, it is a movement.

Its mantra: “With every TOMS purchase, you stand with us on issues that matter.”  That’s ‘why’ they are in business.

People who purchase Toms shoes care as much about issues that matter as they do about buying shoes.  They can buy shoes from anywhere but no other company is committed to helping others like Toms.  Toms supporters are a very committed community of buyers.

Our XL Consulting community, under the Fabulous Fempreneurship brand is made up of women entrepreneurs who want to help develop the women leaders of tomorrow in the business community.  It’s ‘why’ we are in business. Who is your community?

Curating

Once you have found your community, the next step is to curate content.  Finding content is much easier when you know who you want to engage with.  Not all the content you develop has to be your own.  Find other thought leaders who share the same community as you and follow them on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

The next step is to engage with these thought leaders and curate their best content and share with your community on a consistent basis.  This is the “give” aspect of social media. By promoting  their curated content these thought leaders will engage with you and share YOUR content.

Content

While you are curating content from influencers in your market space, don’t forget to create your own content!

This is pretty easy to do once you are following leaders in your industry.  You can take a topic that your community wants to hear about and spin it many different ways on multiple platforms.  Just don’t be lazy! It may seem easy to connect your platforms together ie Facebook/Instagram, but that is just duplicating content and the audiences on different platforms do not always share the same interests.

For example, the audience demographic on Facebook is not the same as Instagram.  The younger community who hang out on Instagram definitely do not have a Facebook profile.  They have no interest at all in Facebook.  If you have a teen to early 20’s community, they are more likely to have a Twitter account than a Facebook profile.

If your community is B2B or leaders in the business community, then producing content to post on LinkedIn is important.  Content for this platform is not the same as the material you necessarily post on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.  It is a Business platform so leave out the very personal stuff, it doesn’t fit this platform.

How do you produce your own content for a variety of platforms without sucking up all your valuable time?  One of the best ways is to create a content calendar for the month for each platform.  This could be in the form of 4 blog posts that can be geared to twitter and facebook audiences, plus 3 videos for IGTV, & 4 videos on YouTube.  Add in a couple of podcasts to share on LinkedIn and you have a variety of material that can produce a month’s worth of content.  And, let’s not forget photos.    Video and photo content can be produced easily on your smartphone because your community will enjoy the personal side of your content as much as the professionally edited content you produce.  It will be more real for your community and show your brand personality.

You can show the raw side of ‘you’ by hosting Facebook lives, or Instagram lives. There are a variety of ways to engage your community.

If you aren’t sure what kind of content to develop, search platforms such as Buzz Sumo or Quora or Google keywords.  These sites will give you ideas of what a community like yours is interested in learning about and the trending topics.   If you have a Facebook group you can poll the group to find out what they need help with the most.

Once you have developed your content you can schedule it to disperse, rinse and repeat many times over with a scheduling tool.  My favorite is PromoRepublic, a cross between Canva and Hootesuite. I can use their content suggestions, alter it, select one of the graphics and schedule across multiple platforms all at the same time.

You can always update historic content by adding more relevant news, videos, quotes, and photos to make it new again.  If you devote one hour a month to updating existing content, you have created brand new content in a matter of minutes that will help boost your Google ranking.

Connecting

Once you have posted your content on a regular basis, don’t forget the most important part which is connecting.  Respond to your community by engaging with their content, answering their comments and taking note of what your community is adding or responding to. This is the listening part of social media engagement.  The comments and concerns of your community will help you with increased engagement

Don’t forget to SHARE posts from your community of followers on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.  This will show you care and at the same time increase your followers.

Social media engagement is your online marketing strategy, which combined with in person, traditional marketing, will boost your brand awareness and lay the foundation for selling products.

The Digital Marketing Strategy Behind Using #Hashtags by @DinaArsenaultPR

by 2 Comments

by Dina Arsenault | Featured Contributor

We have all seen them, those random pairings of words forming phrases, pre-cursored with the number sign so eloquently or sometimes not so eloquently embedded in various social media posts.  Many of you have probably wondered to yourself, “Is there a point to this?” or “Is this even effective?” and the answer is unequivocally YES!

The use of Hashtags, when done properly can be one of the easiest and most effective ways to market you and your business online.

According to The Balance, Hashtags are:

“Used to categorize content and track topics on Twitter and other social media platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and LinkedIn. When you use hashtags, you help people who are interested in your topic find your posts and Tweets more effectively.”

As you can see, the very definition of a hashtag makes it an extremely effective way to search for specific content throughout various social media platforms as well as to promote you, your business, your upcoming event or your campaign.

When used properly, hashtags are a great way for individuals and brands to stand out on social media and as a result increase their organic reach and engagement in the process. They give individuals useful context and cues for recall, aggregate posts and images together, and update a group of like-minded individuals on certain topics in real time.

When you are looking to strategically market you or your brand online, use hashtags as a research tool, to find what terms or phrases are trending in not only your country, but your specific region, town or more importantly, your specific target audience as well.

Hashtags, when used properly will actually improve your visibility in search engine rankings which will allow you to generate a higher return on your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) when developing your website or designing your content marketing and social media strategies.

So, now you are wondering, “Well this all sounds great on paper, but how do I actually go about creating an effective hashtag?”

Read on – Don’t worry I have you covered…

How Do I Create And Use An Effective Hashtag

  1. Get creative and pick a phrase that is easy to read and relatively short in length.
  2. Research what terms are trending in your geographic area.  This will allow you to see what people are talking about and how this can relate to your business.
  3. Use a little humour that will reflect you and your business brand positively.
  4. Check your social media analytics and see which ones worked.  Which ones got the most responses, shares, likes, re-tweets, comments or traffic to your website.  These will help you to tailor what your future social media posts will include in order to generate the most effective content marketing strategy for you and your business brand.  If this particular hashtag didn’t work, then go back to the drawing board and try another approach.  Initially, it really is about trial and error and really getting to know specifically who and what your target audience is all about.

The great thing about hashtags is that it is a wonderful way to unify a campaign across all of your social media platforms.  When using a specific hashtag for your brand or an event, it allows your audience to search across all platforms easily and effectively, allowing you and your brand to generate new customers and essentially give back to existing ones.

If you are still wondering if hashtags are an effective and essential marketing tool for you and your business brand in today’s social media age, read what Kim Garst, named one of Forbes Top 10 Social Media Power Influencers has to say:

“Hashtags: Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re an integral part of using social media. With reams of content being produced and promoted on social media each and every minute, hashtags provide a simply way to search for specific, topical content. With every major social network now allowing the use of hashtags, understanding why they’re such an important part of social media marketing is even more important.They allow us to whittle down the thousands of updates we receive daily from friends, colleagues and businesses, as well to find new people to interact with and new conversations to follow. They give us the ability to track conversations about our brand and our products, and help us keep an eye on what’s going on in our industry.”

At the end of the day, digital marketing practices are constantly changing and adapting to the technologies that are readily available.  In order to stay competitive we have to change along with them.  If you don’t want to be left behind, put on your creative thinking caps and get hashtagging!

Remember to use this tool wisely, and don’t overuse – that can be extremely annoying for followers. It can also lead to a new phenomenon on Instagram as of late called, Instagram Shadowban:

“This occurs when your hashtags become ‘un-discoverable’. You can use your hashtags, however you’ll only show up in hashtag feeds of your current followers. This means that your images won’t show up in hashtag feeds of anyone who DOESN’T follow you, obviously reducing the reach of your account and making it much harder to reach a new audience.”

If you are:

  1. Using bots, automated services or buying followers
  2. Using the same hashtags for months on end
  3. Receive a recent surge in activity
  4. Use broken hashtags

An Instagram Shadowban can occur.  It just goes to show, that if you place your marketing focus on building relationships over acquiring instant sales by providing value to the community you are striving to build around your brand, these types of things can and will be avoided.  So my best advice for when you venture into the world of hashtags is to utilize strategically and above all else have fun!

——————————————————————–

Dina ArsenaultDina Arsenault Digital Media Strategist and the undisputed reigning Madame of creativity, community and connection for the Ontario Chapter of http://acueconsulting.com/.

A celebrated and sought after speaker and writer, Dina is a caffeine fueled and food delighted ( locally sourced of course) Community Builder, Relationship Nurturer and all around Small Business Supporter. Dina’s online expertise is driven by her desire to promote your business online while connecting and elevating others in the process to foster community and the all around ‘good feels’.  If you want to be visible, connected and engaged with your community (and exposed to great food and fun) Dina is your gal!

Connect with Dina: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Snapchat: dinaarsenault7

Save

Three Strategies to Get More Engagement on Your Social Media Pages by @social_strat

by Leave a Comment

by Crystal Girgenti

Many small business owners dive into social media when they begin to promote their business online. They see the value that others have placed on using the sites to grow a business and gain new clients, but after a while they begin to form doubts.

When using social media, the likes, shares, and comments on your posts are what help drive traffic and expand your reach.  If a fan comments on your posts, all of their friends see the comment and a link to your page. That is the real power of using social media. In addition, when people are interested in your content, you become more motivated to share and help them further. It makes you feel wanted. You can make a difference.

You may get a few likes here and there from that super loyal fan, but you want and need more. So what happens when you’re posting, but not getting any feedback or engagement? You begin to feel like you’re talking to a wall. It’s natural to become discouraged, think social media is a waste of your time, and give up.

But not so fast!

Try these three strategies to get people liking, commenting, and sharing your posts and pages:

1.    Start with a targeted group of individuals and offer information and solutions geared towards their needs. For example, if you’re in the fitness industry, offer tips and tricks specifically for women trying to lose weight before their wedding. Don’t worry. You won’t miss out on helping your other fans. In fact, your post will most likely be shared more often because your audience can think of someone off the top of their head that this information can serve. You’re following will become more interested because the content resonates with them. They can comment because they know what you’re talking about and will even ask questions to see if you can help further. Imagine clients coming to you for help instead of you finding them? Change it up every week or so and offer solutions to a different group. Find out what their hobbies or interests are and get them talking!

2.    Ask your audience a question. By simply posting information and promotions, you are having a monologue. The goal of using social media is to engage in a dialogue, where both parties are talking to each other. If you get in the habit of simply pushing information to your audience, they will not be offered a chance to provide their comments or opinions. Perhaps you have a product that comes in blue or purple. You can ask their opinions on which color they prefer. Or you can ask them what they need help with. Involve your audience in your business decisions. Not only will you gain valuable market research at no cost, but you’ll gain a following who sees that their opinions are valued.

3.    Lastly, reaching all of your fans can be difficult when posting once or twice per day, especially with Facebook’s ever changing algorithm which determines how many of your fans are shown your posts. In the past couple of years, we’ve seen a steady decline in the number of fans who see your posts because of these changes. A quick fix for this is to post more often and increase the number of posts you send out per day. You won’t bother people if you are sending out valuable, usable, and interesting content that encourages conversation. Many small business owners will use the “I don’t have time” excuse when told to post more often. You’ll need to decide for yourself what is important to your business.  In my opinion, it is always worth your time to engage in conversations with the people that pay you!

Take action using these strategies one at time and you should begin to see a steady increase in the engagement on your pages. Let your audience know that you genuinely care about them and you will be rewarded with increased revenues.

————————————————————————————————————-

Crystal GirgentiCrystal Girgenti is a small business consultant who helps start ups, non-techies, and beginners grow their business with the use of online marketing and technology.  As a statistician in the past, her knowledge of technology and measuring success, along with her enthusiasm in helping individuals share their passions, has made her a sought after advisor to small business owners. You can grab a copy of her FREE report “100 Things Every Business Must Do To Succeed Online” at http://www.social-strategist.com