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Lesson Info

Social Media

Social media is really all about storytelling. It's just important that you know how to tell the same story different ways on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And what I don't have listed here is like LinkedIn, and Snapchat, but those are also very important arenas where you need to define how you wanna speak on there. But today we're gonna focus on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, just to name a few of them. So there is a way for you to create congruency across all social media sites, and first you just have to understand what each platform is best known for. So I just wanna do a really quick rundown, and this may be elementary for some but it may be new for others because I know that I've personally found that people are utilizing different platforms and what I feel is wrong, and they're confused as to why they're not getting any engagement, and it's because they're not really using the platform for how it should be used. So let's start now with Instagram. Okay, so this is an examp...

le of Instagram. Instagram is an image and video driven platform. It used to be images, but now that video is like over 80% of how people observe content, it's a video platform now as well. So therefore you know, you're gonna be hard pressed to garner a lot of attention to your page if you are very heavy in graphics that have words on it. And so there's very few people who can really get away with that and most of the time, they are consistently only showing graphics. So for example, if you're an inspirational page, and you're reposting quotes, yeah, that makes sense for you to create a platform that's all words. But if you are trying to talk about photography, and the whole time you have these graphics with words, it doesn't align, it's a miss in the messaging. So you know, you wanna make sure that your goal is to have your pictures do most of the talking, and to have attention grabbing words in the caption, you know, to yield whatever call to action that you are trying to illicit. So that's Instagram. So next here we have Twitter. So in contrast, Twitter is a platform centered on words. You know, you have to be keen on how you try to get attention when it comes to Twitter because you have just a few short characters, so you've gotta be compelling and have relevant hashtags and that leads to visibility when it comes to Twitter. Next here we have Facebook pages, and I just wanna point out and let everyone know that Facebook, with more than 1.8 billion active users remains the world most popular social network. So sometimes in our head, and I know that I, I have like younger siblings and like "I'm not on Facebook, like it's so old, it's so this," it's like well, if you're trying to be a business owner, you should, because it's the leading social media site. Facebook Pages is actually a very sweet marriage, because it involves, a sweet marriage between Instagram and Twitter because it involves words, it involves pictures, it involves video, and so it's really vital to create content that can really marriage all that together. And the best part about Facebook Pages is that it is linked to Instagram, so when you want to sponsor content, just know that you have the ability to do that through Facebook to get to Instagram. So another way to establish congruency when it comes to your social story here, is to maintain your brands look across all platforms. So this is achieved first by ensuring that all outlets have the same social media handle. So this is an example, this is TONL. This is our Twitter page, this is our Facebook page, and this is our Instagram. And you'll see here that TONL is used on all of our platforms. So that just helps, when somebody's like "You know, I'm not really on Facebook, "where can I find TONL?" Okay, well I don't want you to have a difficulty and write in TONL images, or TONL for diverse people, it's like people don't wanna remember that, they only wanna remember TONL. So make sure that across all of those particular brands, you have the same name. And so to that point, you're profile picture should also be the same for all of your social media platforms because that creates that recognition. And so I usually tell people that you should use your logo as your profile picture rather than perhaps yourself, or the co-founders because I think that people are visually remembering colors more than they're going to be remembering you know, different faces that you have portrayed as your profile picture. It lends itself well to knowing, okay, logo, business. If they see your personal face, then you know, they may think that it's your personal page. So I just encourage people to try to use your logo, and so everyone just knows when you see that logo you know that it's TONL. So the next thing here that I wanna point out is your bio. So a lot of people don't understand that your bio has key words in it, and just because you're going through the portal of Instagram does not mean that your page is not on the web. Everything related to social media is still on the web, so for SEO purposes, people are going to find your Instagram, your Facebook, your Twitter through typing in certain key terms. So if you're wondering okay, what words should I include in my bio? Try to go to Google AdWords, and they will help you to determine what are the popular words associated with your particular industry. So for here, this is the example that I'm using for our Instagram. So since your bio is the first thing that your audience reads, you just wanna make sure that there's something in there for them. Because your audience is basically saying, "What's in it for me? "What are you gonna give me if I follow you? "Other than these pretty pictures you're gonna show me, "what's gonna keep me staying here?" So if you look at our bio here, the first thing that you see is TONL, Diverse Stock Photos, that's strategic. It's strategic because like I said earlier, when people are searching for these key words, diverse stock photos, our Instagram is gonna pop up, or our Twitter, or our Facebook. The second piece here says Turning Stock Photography into Culturally Radiant Stories. It tells you exactly who we are. I don't want to come to your page and be like "Hmm, TONL, wonder what that is, what are they offering?" You know, you're very clear in your bio. But then, the last piece here is what's in it for them? Use code TONL for 10% off a single image. And what is missing here is, I like to create like arrows to like force people to see, and so, well it's not missing but let's just say that I wanted to offer something else, and it's listed on our site. That's actually even better because it forces them to go to your site. Snag 10% code over at, over in the link here. And you put a little arrow. And so again that forces them to actually go to your page. Now one thing that I will say is that the link that you associate to your brand, it is great if you actually have it be, like have your name in it, but I also understand that it's important for you to track activity. So what we do is we actually have a bitly link, it actually shortens whatever you're speaking on. So let's just say that for example, we did a collaboration with Nike this week, and we wanted people to read the narratives and shop the photos. So we just created a little bitly, but we always include TONL in the name. So if you don't know, and you're new, and you're just coming, you just think, "Oh, I see TONL," click. So whatever bitly that you create for your links, just make sure that it has your name in it. Question from Tilo who says "What if my brand name "is taken on one platform already?" Yeah. "Should I change it on all the other ones "even if that means that I have to add something to it?" The example Tilo gave was like a hello, as in hello whatever the brand name was. Okay, I get the question, so basically, you're committed to the name and then you go online and you realize somebody else has it. On one of the platforms. On one of the platforms but the other ones don't. So that's a great question because TONL for our Facebook page, the actual header when you go on it it does say TONL, but the URL says TONL imagery, because somebody had TONL. And so I would just say in that situation if you are committed to that name, and you don't wanna change it, just make sure that whatever name that you have still has the first part of your name. So if someone has butterfly, well just make sure it says butterfly dreams, I keep using butterfly dreams, I don't know why. You know, just make sure that your business name is somewhere in there, that's the way that I would tackle that, 'cause that's what happened to us. Or the other piece to it is, somebody had, for example, my personal page, somebody had Karen Okonkwo, but I also noticed that that person who had Karen Okonkwo hadn't had activity since like 2005. So what you can do is you can reach out to Facebook, to LinkedIn, to Twitter and say, "Hey, I'd like to campaign "to get this name, there's been no business activity." They can investigate it, and you know, it could take a few weeks, it could take a few days, it could take months, but they may be able to actually give you that name. So that's another avenue you can take, just because you see that somebody has it, doesn't necessarily mean that it's off limits. So I was able to get Karen Okonkwo, because somebody who had it prior wasn't using it. So that's an angle that you can take too. Any questions in the audience? When you build your brand around social media, are you afraid that social media channels like seen on Facebook might change the rules of how to display your content, and that could change your brand? Like Google is notorious for killing off products for example. Yeah, well you know one thing that I always say is we are lucky to have these platforms to even give us the opportunity to reach those people, and so if they wanna change something for business purposes, we honestly have to follow suit. So it's about being adaptable. Now I know there are a lot of people, because of the algorithms, they have lost some money, you know, when it comes to say Instagram, and so it would behoove you to you know, create, my mentors, they always say things like "Get to a level where your voice can be heard louder." So get a lot of followers on your social media brands to have that voice, 'cause a lot of these brands, they go to the user and they say "What do you think? "I want you to pilot this, I want you to test this out." And then that's your opportunity to say "Hey, I don't think "that this is working," or "This is really hurting businesses like myself." But until then, I think it's just about you being on your toes, and knowing that at any given moment, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, they can change the way that they want to portray their business, and you know, if you don't follow along, you will lose out. So that would be my answer to that.