It’s a new week and September is almost over!!! This year is truly flying by, but the fall weather is here and that is a blessing.
It’s been a really productive and educational month for Bedford Street Marketing, LLC. After taking a few months off from posting to social media, I started in earnest the start of this month to get my social media presence going. It’s kind of like The Fellowship of the Ring. You are on a quest and along the way you meet all different kinds of followers via Social Media!!!!
Along the way I’ve picked up some good insights that I want to share with you:
Content, Content, Content…..
I cannot stress this enough – Content is king. I’ve found that the content you post daily needs to be consistent in theme and also, spaced out to not overwhelm people. I have found a mixture of using a This day in history and national calendar day post to be effective. Finding a historical event or a national day that I can relate to marketing and entrepreneurship has garnered me followers and a huge increase in interactions on both Instagram and Twitter.
Additionally, I am using inspirational quotes about success, entrepreneurship, leadership and business as a way to get follows and increase follower interaction. And finally, a humorous post is always effective – it shows your followers that there is a fun side to your brand image.
See below for an example:
I call this one my Nineties Cats post. I added in “marketing strategy changes. Does your marketing approach need an update? Visit us at bedfordstmarketing.com today for a free marketing evaluation”. To date this post has received 450 Likes, generated 10 comments and 101 profile visits. Additionally it has reached 6,409 people.
The image speaks to how things have changed using the cute and funny cat imagery – and relating that to marketing has paid off huge dividends.
As important as keeping your content fresh and thematic, is your posting schedule. I’ve found that you can post as much as 6 times a day – but they must be spaced out!!! Doing 1 or 2 in the morning, then 1 or 2 in the early and late afternoon, and then 1 or 2 early evening and late night works. Make sure to keep a few hour in between posts.
Over Promotional Posts do not work:
Social media is a place where people want to see a funny cat picture, read a inspirational quote or learn about a historical event/national day. What they don’t react to is overly promotional content and copy (this also bumps up against a lot of social media algorithms, which will limit the audience that see these types of posts.
I learned this the hard way, when I posted the below image. Not only was it one of my worst performing posts this month – but I also saw people stop following me when I posted it. So, my advice is tie your brand or product into the images message, include your website or email in the comments or even on the image – but do not try a hard sell. Social media is a soft sell arena.
Follow the right people and followers will find you:
When I started my IG and Twitter accounts, I wrongly assumed that I wanted to only follow business leaders, marketing firms and people in the marketing community. This strategy is flawed because 1) you run out of people to follow quickly and 2) these accounts don’t have a lot of followers.
To increase followers, take the time to Google Top Instagram Influencers in 2018. And yes, follow them all. On this list will be Kardashians, pop stars, movie stars and people outside of the marketing vertical. Also on this list will be large brands like Walmart, Target, Nike, and others. These accounts in general have over 1MM followers – and once you follow them, their followers will check out your account and become your followers. I’ve seen this simple trick work and it has gotten my a lot of new followers and followers who interact with my account daily.
Conclusion:
The results of following the steps above have been phenomenal for me this month. I’ve seen my Instagram Account go from 320 followers on Sept. 1st – to 972 and climbing, as of the writing of this blog post.
An added bonus to the increased following and interaction with my IG is I picked up a marketing affiliate with a boutique clothing line. Simply post their products on my feed and tag them (also given a 10% discount code) – and any sales made coming from my Discount Code is a commission for Bedford Street Marketing. It’s like getting paid to post.
On the Twitter front, I’ve seen my account grow from around 350 followers to 1,056 followers.
Have a great evening!!!!
Bedford Street Marketing Insights 