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Oct 07 2019 
Social Media | Top Tips
Social Media Marketing Tips
Social media – can’t live with it, can’t live without it!
That being said, your social media channels are one of the best marketing tools you have. 67% of the UK population are active social media users so there is huge potential to reach new and returning customers through channels such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. We’ve put together some guidelines and tips on how to maximize your presence on these three channels.
Top Tips
1 | Showcase your brand’s personality
- Be creative and make sure your bio/profile reflects your business
2 | Say no to bad quality images
- Whether taken on a good smartphone or professional camera, be sure to get the best images you can of your store, customers and products.
- Banish blurry photos!
3 | Communication is key
- Like, comment, share, re-tweet
- Interact with your followers and like minded brands/companies – this will help boost traffic to your page and entice new customers
4 | Be consistent
- The algorithms (especially of Instagram and Facebook) favour pages which stay consistent with how regularly they are posting. This will help your page stay visible in your followers feeds.
So, how often should I be posting?
Twitter
Twitter is great to post more regularly throughout the day. This could include:
- Writing a tweet yourself about something that is on that day (special deals, new in-store arrivals, events etc.)
- Sharing an interesting article
- Retweeting a local teachers news
Facebook
- Facebook is best for sharing things 2-4 times a week
- Again this could be anything from a great video, an interesting article, your favourite item for sale that week, local news, a video tour of your shop, a poll – you get the idea!
Instagram
- On Instagram, don’t post to your grid more than 1 photo a day. However, the more Instagram stories you can share, the better!
- Instagram is the most visual platform of the three – make sure you’re posting the highest quality images you have available
- Don’t post images with lots of text in them – keep it simple
When should I post?
Have a look at your page insights (Facebook and Instagram) to see when you’re audience is most active. Make use of the schedule feature (under publishing tools) on Facebook so that you line up content to be posted even when you’re busy.
You can also use social media management sites to your advantage as we know it can be hard to find the time to update social media profiles. Tools such as Hootsuite will enable you to plan and schedule posts weeks in advance as well as allowing you to manage multiple channels through this one tool. (Other examples – Buffer, CoSchedule)
Need help with this? Get in touch with Sophie here.
Formats & Best Practise
Facebook
Tags
Tagging other users is a great way to expand the audience your post may reach! Make sure the people you tag are relevant to the content you’re sharing.
- Tag @takeitaway when you have an event coming up or there’s a specific instrument you’re posting about that could be bought through the scheme so we can share it too 🙂
Photos are always great to share but videos are king!
- If you have a YouTube channel too, don’t be tempted to share a link to your latest video there. Always upload videos to the native channel you’re sharing it on. This will allow the algorithms to show your video in your followers feeds and have a higher watch rate.
#Hashtags
- Although not as successful on Facebook compared to Twitter and Instagram, hashtags can still be a useful way for pages to be discovered. Keep it concise – we recommend 3 relevant hashtags at most
Twitter
Twitter recently doubled its character limit to 280 – exciting! However, the beauty of Twitter is that you can share thoughts and news succinctly. Keep it short but sweet!
Don’t make the mistake of starting a tweet with @!
- When you start a tweet by tagging someone with the @ sign, it translates as you’re sending a message only to that user. This type of tweet will not be visible to your followers so a way of getting around this is by simply adding a full stop before you start.
- Example to the right:
#Hashtags
- A great way to join in conversations with other Twitter users and also for your business to be discovered. You can hashtag words in the middle of sentences to help keep your character count down but it’s good practise to keep hashtags till the end.
- Example to the right:
Instagram
Format
As we’ve already mentioned, Instagram is the most visually engaging platform. Make sure you’re using the best quality content you have.
Photos
- You can either share single photos or multiple photos (up to 10) creating a mini carousel of images for your followers to swipe through. This is useful if you’ve got similar images from an event or want to show different angles of one instrument. Just tap the last icon on the bottom right hand corner when uploading.
- Instagram now allows for images to be shared in landscape and portrait rather than just square – just tap the two little arrows in the bottom left hand corner of the image preview when you upload.
Videos
- Instagram allows videos of up to 1 minute to be shared as a post (although you could extend this by post a longer video in multiple sections like you would with the carousel post mentioned above.)
- You could also share short animations or GIFs as a video post on Instagram
#Hashtags
- Instagram is the place to let loose with the hashtags! The more the merrier.
- Separate your hashtags from the main part of your caption – either add some extra spaces or add hashtags as a separate comment
- Example to the right hand side:
Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories are a great way to share news, promotions and behind the scenes footage and only last for 24 hours.
Highlights
These can be made from past Instagram Stories so that users can come back to watch them again; a very useful feature!
- Idea: use a Highlight to answer FAQs by asking your followers a question
Re-sharing
Re-share posts from other users or even your own posts to attract more attention
- How? Just click the arrow/share button on the post you’d like to share and it will give you the option to add to your story
Format
Make use of all the format options in Instagram Stories to make your stories as eye catching and engaging as possible! Formats include:
- Font change (text and colour)
- Coloured backgrounds
- Adding GIFs
- Adding music
- Adding stickers
- Including a location
- Using polls and questions
If you have any questions or would like some help with any of your channels, please get in touch with Sophie, Marketing Manager at Take it Away here.
We’ve also found a useful list of what size images to use as your headers, profile pictures and post images across all social platforms here: Social Media Image Sizes Guide
