In September, the Sharp Notions team attended Upstate Social Sessions at the George Eastman Museum. It’s a day-long event that gave us the chance to learn about the impact social media has on our personal and professional lives everyday. We heard from local professionals and how they managed to make their businesses flourish. Social media has proven to be a large asset to businesses by connecting with their audience and showing that their company is more than just a brand or logo. A company is made up of ordinary-everyday people and social media allows us to show that. After listening to 5 different panels and 15 different people, here are the top three things I learned.
#1 – Everyone can go live. . . But that doesn’t mean everyone should
Facebook and Instagram gives everyone the option to go live to talk about pretty much whatever they want. If you’re just talking about nonsense and you’re unorganized, you should either keep your distance from going live or follow this plan for when you do go live:
- Let your followers know when you plan on going live so they can be prepared.
- Make sure you have a strong wifi connection. The worst thing is having the screen freeze on a strange facial expression or having a grainy video.
- Know what you’re going to say. When you write up a list of things you plan to cover, it’ll add confidence and reduce the amount of “umm’s” and “uhh’s” you say.
- As you gain more views, continuously update your growing audience on what you’re talking about so your new viewers aren’t lost.
- Don’t forget to interact with your audience whether that’s answering their questions or giving someone a shoutout.
Now that you know how to properly go live, give it a shot.
#2 – Use a theme for Instagram
Instagram is one of my favorite social media platforms because of the creativity and the community of instagrammers. It’s a fun way to show off your personality or your company’s personality. It gives you a chance to have some fun and is way more laidback than LinkedIn. First things first, you must have a consistent color theme throughout your photos. If it’s a scattered mess of all the colors under the rainbow, it’ll look unappealing and less engaging.
Above is a perfect example of keeping a consistent theme on your instagram. This local photographer uses browns and greens in his photos. He also uses landscapes and sometimes contains a human subject in the shot. When your followers are scrolling through their Instagram feed and they come across your photo, they should be able to recognize that it’s one of your photos based on the theme you’ve developed over time.
Also make sure you’re consistent with your posting. You don’t want to post 5 photos in one day but you don’t want to completely abandon your followers either. Find a happy medium that works for your business and lifestyle.
#3 – Consistency is key
Across all of your social media accounts, you want to make sure you’re using the same photo, username, and bio. The idea is to have a uniform profile for your Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, etc. When you have the same name and photo, people are going to have a much easier time finding you. Along with a uniform profile, you want to have the same voice across all platforms. If there are multiple people running the accounts for your business, make sure to go over your goals to ensure you have the same voice across all social media platforms.
Now, you should be ready to go live, your followers can easily find you, and you’re ready to spice up your Instagram. Don’t be afraid to experiment with your social media whether that’s different types of posts or different times to post. You’ll only find out what works best for your company with experimenting.