Social media, the one people ask me most about.
It's a tricky old world is social media and the trickiest part about it? It's constantly changing, just as you begin to get used to something the big guys over at Instagram/Facebook HQ decide to throw another thing into the mix, we now have to save? What's a reel?
It's true, there are lots of ways to master social media, but who says you have to master it? All you need to do is get the basics right to begin with and the rest follows.
Growing a following
Okay. Let me get this straight. More followers does not equal more customers. Let me repeat that. More followers does not equal more customers.
I think it's easy to become obsessed with numbers over on social media, and it's true I do celebrate each following milestone but I do that knowing that my following has grown organically and not through them being bought, or through pushed promotions.
It doesn't matter how many followers you have if they're not interested in buying your product. It's better to have 200 loyal followers who like your products and back your core values than 10k followers who are not interested at all. Those 200 are much more likely to buy and to return than those 10k.
But how do you grow an organic following? By being just that - organic. Show yourself, show who you are, what you do, the real you and why you are doing it. If something isn't working out let people know, show the ups and downs the learning curves. People buy from people - they don't buy from an anonymous Instagram account. The moment I started doing talking stories and introduced myself in person (in 2018 2 years after I started may I add!) my following increased.
Also by really working out your core values, what is driving you to do your business. What makes you different from the rest? Then through that you can work out who would share your values, work out your ideal customer. Who do YOU want buying your work? Go and find those people, don't wait for them to come to you.
Respond to other peoples post, get chatting, make friends! It's all apart of the process and the more you talk to others and get out there the more you known you'll be.
Taking Photos
Okay so I think we all go through that first stage of taking some pretty awful social media posts and thats almost a right of passage as a small business. I almost don't want to go too much into this BUT there are some really easy way to make sure your photos look nice, and Instagram presentable:
- Natural light, please, please, pleaseeee don't attempt to take product photos after the sun has set unless you are a professional photographer or have some really good kit/editing skills. Use the sun as much as possible and if you miss it wait till tomorrow. No content is better than poor content.
- Get onto Pinterest and start searching 'flatlays' for ideas hints and tips. There is soooo much inspiration on there.
- Get inventive and creative, what is your product and what else could enhance it? So for my cake card I had a recipe on the back, I got out the eggs and flour and made a baking scene around it. What could be linked with your product, is it flowers? Foods? etc
Talking stories
Ah the dreaded talking stories! 'How did you become so natural?' is a question I get asked a lot and all I can say is through practice, head over to my IGTV to watch my first talking story *cringe* how high is my voice honestly! And here is a link to a previous blog post about how to get going and to lose the talking story ick! Be sure to caption your talking stories - this is SO important. So many people watch stories without sound on and will miss important information without it.
Talking stories get easier with time
There we have it! Some simple steps to get your social media going, other easy but effective things to do include - make full use of all things on Instagram, that means varying it up with reels, IGTV, stories etc you can't rely on posts anymore.
Make use of captions, people like stories they like to know full explanations and to be asked questions. Asking questions not only brings more comments onto your pictures which boost the posts but also gives you an insight into who your follower are and why they follow you.
Most importantly have fun! It's meant to be a fun, yes of course you can chat about the down side to things (I often do) but it doesn't mean that you can't have fun with it either!
Hope this helps, more questions will be answered on my story today!
Lucy x