Are You Guilty Of These 8 Instagram Crimes?

28Dec

Facebook, Instagram, Marketing, Social Media, Social networking, Uncategorized

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms around. Marketers need to learn how to use this site as well as Facebook and Twitter due to its high volume of daily visitors.

That being said, Instagram isn’t just a clone of pre-existing platforms. It has a unique infrastructure and culture. There are certain rules you need to follow and big mistakes to avoid. Because of the amount of people online, mistakes are noticed easily. Here are the top seven errors to steer clear of on Instagram:

Posts without captions. Sure, Instagram is all about the images. Regardless, you need the space they give you to write a compelling message. Be sure to write a specialized caption for each post you write, as you would for Facebook.
Hashtag abuse. Speaking of captions, hashtags are extremely helpful for Instagram users that are looking for specific content. On this platform, you want to use 7-10 per post after the main caption. Any more tags will make your content look like spam, and less will narrow your reach too much.
Silent posts. Don’t forget about the “social” side of social media. Engage with your followers! Customers wouldn’t be on social media if they didn’t want to communicate with their favorite people and brands in a unique way.
Inconsistent branding. Take a step back and look at your Instagram account. Does it look look and feel like your brand’s other marketing? If not, fix it stat! Make your current logo the profile image, fill out your bio, and make sure your tone is consistent with your other marketing material.
Promo only content. You aren’t one of those spam accounts, are you? If not, then be sure to add compelling content that pulls in your audience. Don’t worry about sales as much, but rather building an online community. Then, sales will come.
Ugly images. Instagrammers like bright, eye-catching visuals. This is especially important for brands who are trying to market. You have to generate creative and appealing imagery and, perhaps most importantly, make sure it looks good on a smartphone! Don’t forget these pics will be viewed primarily on Instagram’s app.
A private account. Is your account optimized? Is your content eye-catching and engaging? Are you using hashtags? Then why isn’t this Instagram thing working? It may be as simple as your account is set to “private”. This mistake needs to be fixed immediately. It’s the social media equivalent of having the lens cap on a camera after a photo shoot. Your work will be all for nothing if not everyone can see what you’re sharing.
Ignoring Instagram Stories. Instagram Stories is not only an innovative tool, it’s in a premiere spot of screen real estate. People immediately see the Stories section when they open the app. These are fleeting moments that only last for a day, so you can put exclusive content and sales inside!

Instagram is a fun and effective tool to raise brand awareness online. At this time, there are more young users on this platform than Facebook. Be sure to tap into this market as soon as possible!

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Use Social Media To Project Your Work Culture

By Christopher Tompkins

27Dec

Business, Content Creation, Copywriting, Facebook, Instagram, Marketing, Pinterest, Snapchat, Social Media, Social networking, Uncategorized

Wouldn’t it be nice if your business could take a selfie? Well, it can through your employees. Emphasizing your company’s unique and vibrant office culture through social media is a great way to humanize your business. It appeals to the very core of social media, which is person-to-person communication.

Social media marketing is quite a bit different than traditional methods. It requires a human element. Otherwise, you’re just posting a bunch of ads. The most successful social media campaigns projects work culture through the following methods:

1. Pictures from around the office/events. Christmas party? Post (non-embarrassing) pictures! Methods like Snapchat Stories and Instagram Stories have even proven to be great with this so you can show behind the scenes shots of your office.

2. “Staff Picks.” Whether it’s an interesting article, a book of the month, the movie of the year, etc., what your employees like is always a fun way to add a bit of humanity and caring into your brand. This is also very effective when talking about the products and services you sell.

3. An employee of the month. Fairly self-explanatory. By spotlighting an employee, your social media will show your brand is people-driven. This is important for customer relations so your brand can come off as approachable.

Be real with yourself- do you like your office and your coworkers? Let the good vibes show on your social media marketing! Your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram followers will love these types of posts – and so will your team!

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How To Handle Online Marketing After The Holidays

By Christopher Tompkins

26Dec

Advertising, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Marketing, Snapchat, Social Media, Social networking, Twitter, Uncategorized

When the stockings, the tree, the ornaments, and garland goes down, the unwanted gifts are returned, and the eggnog is all but spent, your social media marketing strategy may seem like it has a big hole in it. After all, you’ve spent all this time focusing on Christmas and the holidays that there may not seem much to talk about now. Oh, how wrong you are! People are still buzzing and will be heavily active online for the next few months. Do not let up! Try the following strategy ideas right now:

After-Christmas Sales- Perhaps the more traditional way to drum up business, a sale is always an eye-catch on social media. While you don’t want to be overly promotional on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, every now and again a sale will cause a rise in engagement.

Email marketing- Does your business have an email marketing campaign? If not, now would be a good time to start so 2017 starts off right. As you create your eblasts, be sure to incorporate your social media accounts and your website.

Blogging- Perhaps your customers are tired of reading Christmas stories, and want to get into some heavy reading. Your blog will establish your brand as professional in the industry. It can also offer your customer base a new level of information. You can use social media to promote these new pieces of writing, and vice versa.

The holidays are a fantastic time to drum up business and improve your online visibility. But after the holidays can be just as important! Remember to stay consistent and stay involved in the online community.

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The Social Media Marketing Night Before Christmas

By Christopher Tompkins

24Dec

Advertising, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Marketing, Snapchat, Social Media, Social networking, Twitter, Uncategorized

It was the night before Christmas and all through the web, not a Facebook was quiet, not a Twitter was dead. Okay, enough rhyming. But we do have a great Christmas-related marketing story to tell.

Mal and Rich Caughlin run Haberdasher, a downtown shop that features trendy clothes and a healthy mix of novelty items. It’s an excellent place to find one-of-a-kind items and add them to your wardrobe or home decor.

While they had grown a healthy following, they needed a spike in sales to finish 2016 off right. After completing our e-course, The Fundamentals of Social Media Marketing, they realized they needed a strong online presence, and social media was the best way to do it.

After experimenting with content strategy, they found that sales on their clothing really hit home on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. So for December, they began the “12 Days of Haberdasher Sales” campaign, mixed with non-promotional content. #12DaysOfHaberdasher was used in every sales post during the time. The whole team at the shop was amazed at the results. They even had a few customers who stopped in every single day to pick up that daily deal, which ranged from 50% off all men’s apparel to BOGO kitchenware. According to the Caughlins, it was Haberdasher’s best holiday season in their eight years of business.

Mal and Rich contacted us and thanked us for the inspiration that was brought on by completing our course. We were so excited to see their success and how they utilized social media marketing.Check out our e-course here! http://ow.ly/sR9U307nvMC

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7 Traits That Make Social Media Marketing Campaigns Memorable

By Christopher Tompkins

22Dec

Advertising, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Marketing, Snapchat, Social Media, Social networking, Twitter, Uncategorized

Social media is fast-paced. That’s an absolute fact. Anyone who spent more than an hour away from Twitter and sees all the tweets they missed can attest to this. How can a marketer attempt to keep up?

Despite the plethora of content that’s being uploaded every single minute, you have the potential to hit it big and be memorable. That being said, you’re going to have to work for it. At The Go! Agency, we strive for the following traits in our content strategy so our clients can succeed and gain online visibility like never before.

1. Uniqueness. Even if you’re one out of two million retail shops online, you need to make sure there’s something special about your business and brand. Logos, tone, culture, and overall approach will make a world of difference.

2. Anticipation. Do you have big news to announce? Even if it’s just a big sale, build up some hype by explaining that there will be something worth noting coming soon. People will sign up for notifications on Twitter and Instagram and watch your Facebook timeline closely.

3. Quality. As a professional, you can appreciate quality work. True effort, strategizing, and a touch of talent will go a long way. Take your time and fine-tune your content. Remember, once it’s out on the internet, it’s out!

4. Personality. No one likes to follow a boring page on social media. Add some pizzazz to your content! Whether you add humor, seriousness, or witty comments, make sure your voice is consistent and complete.

5. Tool effectivity. Use what’s in your social media tool belt. Whether you’re taking advantage of the hashtag system, publishing tools, social media advertising, or third party apps, there are tons of tools available to you so you can gain an advantage!

6. Sales appeal. Going back to the building blocks of marketing, you should always ensure your efforts put your product or service in the best possible light. You can do this through copy, images, placement, and even a hefty deal they can’t walk away from.

7. Visual appeal. You should be striving for eye-catching material. Note that pictures, videos (both live and recorded), GIFs, and other forms of imagery are essential to success.

Don’t forget that social media is one of the fastest moving avenues to information and communication we’ve ever dealt with. We need to constantly be on our A-games so our clients can benefit from online marketing and thanks to the above seven traits, we do a pretty good job. Are you up for the challenge?

Contact us today about creating a powerful social media marketing campaign!

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What Snapchat’s Original Content Will Mean For Marketers

By Christopher Tompkins

21Dec

Snapchat, Social Media

First, it was Netflix. Then Amazon. Then YouTube. Now, Snapchat is creating original content that will be exclusively available on their platform. It’s an impressive jump from a social media networking app to a content host. But what can marketers take from this?

The way we see it, there are three revelations for marketers to learn from.

1. It’s time to invest into online marketing. Like, right now. As you can see, traditional media mediums like television and radio are in trouble. Netflix, YouTube, etc. are partial to blame, but their effectivity knows no bounds and Snap Inc., owner of Snapchat, is jumping on this bandwagon while they can. If you haven’t considered online marketing or social media marketing yet, it’s time to move.

2. Video is becoming standard and essential. Still pictures and text can grab someone’s attention only so much when compared to video. More and more platforms are allowing videos to become prominently placed and conveniently visible. Since people are going to be heading to Snapchat and other platforms for original content, make sure your own is ready to roll!

3. Snapchat is finally starting to have enough backing that it can produce its own content, which means it’s definitely a contender as a favorite platform. Mobile-exclusive content and platforms are on the rise in a big way.

As you can see, Snapchat’s plans for original content is a big deal for multiple reasons. It’s time to wake up, business owners! Your company needs to approach marketing in a new way!

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Try These 5 Engagement Heavy Social Media Updates

By Christopher Tompkins

20Dec

Copywriting, Social Media

When you’re looking back at your social media marketing activity in 2016, you may wonder what you should be looking for. ROI? A huge mass of followers? Well, smart marketers will measure an all-important element: engagement.

Which posts rocked? Which flopped? Did a certain subject strike a chord with your audience in a surprising way? Maybe something you were sure of had no impact at all. Well, after studying what’s been done, it’s time to move forward. The following tools are ideal for gathering in your audience and getting people talking.

1. Contests. Social media is stuffed with contests, and for a good reason. They work. For participants to enter, you can ask for some feedback, a simple like or retweet, or even a well thought out answer to “Why should you win?” The best part is, the prize doesn’t even need to be extravagant, perhaps one of your products or gift cards to a service your company provides.

2. Blogs and Long Forms. It may come as a surprise to some people, but many internet users still like to read. Original articles coming from your company is a fantastic way to spread your wealth of knowledge and to establish yourself as an “opinion leader.”

3. Sales. Be alert, there are bargain hunters everywhere. Take advantage of this “compulsion to save” by offering coupons, deals, and flash sales often. It will be a big help and people will follow you to make sure they don’t miss the next one.

4. Freebies. Even better than something on sale is something free. This is especially poignant if you have an ebook, PDF, e-course, trial, or another form of digital product, so you don’t have to be bothered with shipping and handling.

5. Imagery. Text-only social media content can only do so much. You absolutely need pictures, videos, GIFs, interactive art, and more. Now that Twitter no longer counts visuals against its 140 character count, there’s even less of an excuse.

So, does your social media marketing need a shake up? Try to implement or improve one or more of these strategies. Make sure your content is professional, positive, and popular! You will soon understand why this social media marketing thing is so effective.

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Twitter and Instagram’s Dive Into Live

By Christopher Tompkins

19Dec

Instagram, Social Media, Twitter

When people ask us what we think 2017 will be about in terms of social media marketing, we loudly proclaim “video” and perhaps more distinctly, “live video.” It’s not just us and the others in our industry that think so either. It turns out that the minds behind the platforms themselves are on the same page. What more proof is needed than when two of the biggest sites, Twitter and Instagram, implement live broadcasting services into their functionality?

Twitter has added Periscope’s live video broadcasting features into the main Twitter app itself. Does this mean that soon enough we’ll see the end of the Periscope sister app entirely? Only time will tell, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it disappears from our mobile screens soon enough. When you hit the “Compose” button on your Twitter app, you will now see a new option, with Periscope’s eyeball-esque logo staring back at you.

Additionally, Instagram Live is now accessible for all users. It’s prominently placed where one goes to upload content. Additionally, you will also see that Boomerang functionality is also there. Once again, the social media bosses seem to be converging these smaller “branch-off” apps like Boomerang, Layout, and Periscope into their giant, popular software.

What does this mean for marketers? It means that you have options and, frankly, there’s very little excuse for ignoring live video now. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat all offer some form of live service. Platforms are eager to win this “live video war,” so your content gets extra attention and engagement in order to promote the service.

Do not wait until it’s too late. While you probably won’t be able to broadcast live on all five channels unless you have a surplus of smartphones at your disposal, you should pick one or two of these services and start building up engaged audiences. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are some of the most powerful platforms already, so the fact that they’re actively using this innovative concept is quite exciting.

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How Sharable Is Your Social Media Content?

By Christopher Tompkins

18Dec

Social Media

Ok, we have to apologize for something. You CANNOT post funny cat videos on your business page and reap the rewards of people laughing all day. Someday, you’re going to have to add some deeper content.

Even though viral videos, movie trailers, and everything pop culture related always strike a chord with audiences, you will be surprised to learn that serious topics are more “shareable” than anything else.

In 2016, some of the most shared content was political (no surprise there thanks to the Presidential Election) and medical science based news. This is actually great news for clients who work in fact-based industries. In fact, this is so surprising that it’s one of the reasons why some people don’t jump on board with social media. “Who wants to hear about anesthesia on social media?” We once heard. The answer? A lot of people!

Social media isn’t just for fun, even though a lot of people use it for entertainment. It has become one of the biggest avenues for news articles. Every industry has a place on social media. Everyone.

Recently, Facebook has given priority to news articles that are uploaded through their “instant articles” feature. It helps users have INSTANT access to the information because the text actually is already on Facebook. So, just because a news article isn’t the funniest or most entertaining thing in the world, it may just be the most enlightening or educational.

So, the next time the thought “Nobody wants to read this on social media” comes across your mind, you can forget about it. With millions of people logging in every day to check out the latest content, countless people will enjoy what you have to say!

5 Reasons Why Social Media Marketing Works

By Christopher Tompkins

17Dec

Social Media

Social media marketing takes time, effort, and well-developed strategy. Over 50 million businesses found a home on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the other platforms. Social media now controls a large portion of internet activity and rightfully so.

With 2 billion people on Facebook alone, it’s safe to say there’s something to this whole internet marketing thing. Do you need further proof? Check out these reasons you need to jump on board TODAY:

It keeps a brand in customers’ sights. Social media users have fully integrated visiting their favorite platforms and pages into their everyday lives. The primary purpose of marketing is to have your message positioned where your audience congregates. It was the same when we put ads in magazines and commercials into prime time television shows. Now, marketers need to be on their computers, smartphones, and tablet screens via social media marketing. Seeing as how this is where people spend most of their time, it’s fair to say that it’s a good strategy.
It keeps a brand active against the competition. If you haven’t begun using social media yet, you can be sure your competition has. Do yourself a favor and check out what businesses are already benefiting from engagement and a strong online presence. After you’re done saying “They’re on there too?!,” You should probably sign up.
It keeps brands honest. The internet is full of wild lies and rumors, but social media gives a voice to the people. User-generated content, ratings, comments, tagging and other features allow customers and clients to speak their thoughts. As scary as this sounds this is good news for brands. Even negative comments give your business a time to shine by utilizing professional damage control methods.

It keeps a brand involved in the community. Because of just how popular social media has become, you need to show that you care about your customer base by participating. You can do this by delivering engaging posts via the avenue of communication your audience prefers. In essence, it is the same as community outreach which, as all professionals know, is amazing for PR.
It keeps a brand relevant. Social media has become so much more than “connecting with friends.” Many people now use these platforms to network and promote themselves, but also to learn about their industry. Opinion leaders post articles and news stories that are relevant to their work every day.

What can social media do for your brand? Contact us today and find out! Comment below!

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Tag : how to share content on social media