According to Instagram, only half of the business accounts use their story feature at least once a month. So let’s step back, consider this tool, and evaluate its effectiveness for your business.

Stories are a relatively new part of a culture that clearly undervalues their marketing potential.

Here’s what you can do to optimize your story features for any platform, but first…

What are Instagram stories?

The story feature allows users to post photos, videos text, emoticons, and stickers to create long-form or short-form content directly from their mobile phone.

Stories appear at the top of feeds, making it impossible to miss when users sign into their account. Users can also tap on another user’s profile photo to see their story.

When stories are published, they are made available to friends and followers for 24 hours from the time it was published.

The story functionality can be found on:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• Snapchat
• Twitter

Recently Twitter launched its own take on the stories, calling them “Fleets. ”

where did Instagram stories come from?

In 2013, the social media platform, Snapchat, introduced the concept of “stories”. At this point in time, Snapchat had only 10 million users worldwide, so needless to say, this became the new benchmark.

Five years later, during the first quarter of 2018, Snapchat’s ad value increased by 234%. Now businesses were allowed into the social sphere. Just like “The Facebook’s” notorious business change, this is widely considered a “sell-out” period.

Why should I use Instagram stories on my business page?

In 2019, content shared through stories rose to the popularity of the traditional newsfeed. Your temporary content is now just as relevant to the average consumer as your permanent content.

By posting more often you can build a deeper connection with your followers. It will make your business look active, find loyal followers, and add to your creative outlets. When you haven’t posted in a while, your followers will get a notification to let them know that you have posted new content. It is always important to strategize, maybe posting less is your strategy to get that notification. Notifying customers directly is a great way to get traction to your more important announcements!

Create and publish short bite-size stories to show your audience the behind the scenes of your business to help humanize your brand. Your followers will be able to relate the content that you are posting and will get to know you and your business better.

Posting stories also help you re-engage with your audience. If they ever miss a story, it will be at the top of their news feed. You can also track the performance of your stories by seeing who watched or engaged with the content. Once you’ve posted to your story, it will save privately to your account for you to access and republish. Instagram provides great insights, even to private accounts.

Best practices for designing instagram stories

Now that you know everything about stories, it is time to dive into some best practices for creating your own content to engage your audience.

1. Have quality content

For your posts, you’ll want to use high-quality creatives, including vertical orientation images and videos. You will also need to think about text, fonts and placement in your posts.

If you are posting multiple stories break it down by having one idea per post and create colour contrast between the slides. This will engage your audience by enticing them to click to see what you have in store.

2. Keep your brand in mind

Always consider your branding. Create a message that is reflective of your business, so users know who it’s from.

Branding elements you can add in stories are:

• the narrative (message)
• imagery and colour scheme
• your logo
• brand hashtag
• your slogan

3. Choosing the right visual effect

Once you’ve picked your source image, you can decorate it with sticker and text features. Your options are practically endless. This is why you must not spam your stories.

Having too many design effects can overwhelm your posts and distract your users from getting to the core of your message .

When learning to use these effects, make sure that they are relevant to the content and use a maximum of 2 elements.

In sum

There is A LOT to play around with, so go ahead, swipe left in the app, take a photo, and have fun with the editing tools.

The best way to learn what works best for you and your audience you simply have to start. From the data you gather you can pull lessons, test, and try new things to determine what works best for your business.

Should I get a communications degree?

In an academic sense, communications are a social science. University programs are geared towards the theory aspects of psychology, sociology, and some business math. Having a degree will help advance your career when it comes to getting a job in an area of management, supervision, or decision-making roles, but there are other methods of becoming qualified.

Community college programs related to communications will teach you about most workplace media applications, and could also add a specialization or trade to your expertise. A diploma on its own, however, may present limitations in specific fields, but provides you with applicable skills for most tasks.

A post-secondary education of any sort is always a great opportunity for you to explore some of your strengths and interests as well. Knowing these things will prove useful in a job interview setting.

Where do I start my experience?

You might already BE experienced. That’s why it’s important to keep track of the work that you do; communication is far more common than you’d expect. 

Create a portfolio 

A portfolio acts as a catalogue of all your work experience. These aren’t usually required for an entry-level position, but considering any of your aforementioned experiences will help both you and your potential employers see your strengths.

For example, have you ever done work with a fundraiser? Helped to sell your friend’s products or events? Taking the initiative to promote just about anything counts, as long as what you did is applicable to the jobs you want.

Do volunteer work

This is a great place to start. Many organizations, especially in non-profit, are always in need of communications help without the financial means to obtain it. 

Apply for an internship

Want to get paid like a volunteer with more responsibility? This decorates a resume quite nicely, and stands as a true demonstration of loyalty, and networking ability. Interning is a more consistent opportunity for those with (or without) concrete experience.

Accomplishing some of these jobs without pay is also an excellent way to show that you genuinely enjoy the work, and respect its potential.

Short tips for beginning your career 

Practice writing

Writing is a time-consuming job, and it can be QUITE tedious. It’s rare to find a genuine talent, so to succeed in the workplace, you will need to focus on your writing efficiency. 

Develop a strong network

Your network of professional colleagues will help support and guide you through career related obstacles. You simply cannot get enough friends in this business, so reaching out, maintaining rapports and friendships is crucial for developing your skills and experience. 

Be you:

• To truly succeed you need to be as unique as you are versatile.
• Treat everyone, everywhere with respect.
• Do not let your degree define your skill set.
• Always be open to developing new skills. 
• Get efficient with every new job you work.
• The ability to learn and grow will make you an asset.
• You cannot stop learning.

Personal branding

You should look professional online. Your public reputation is extremely important to you and your employers, so a good way to reflect this is by being consistently active online and limiting any content that might be considered inappropriate. This means that your profile should be representing the values a potential employer could be looking for.

You cannot stop learning

I wrote this twice on purpose. Be a sponge. Read blogs. Read news. Read textbooks. Keeping up with this industry means keeping up with the world around you, and proactively adapting to new technologies and platforms means you’ll never be caught off guard.

Computer applications

It should come as no surprise that a laptop is one of many tools in our kit, but this tool, like a pocket knife has ALMOST everything else inside. Some of the most common digital tools are:

• Adobe Creative Cloud
• Microsoft Suite
• Content Management Systems – (WordPress, Squarespace, GoDaddy)
• The Internet
• Our guide to FREE digital marketing tools

Job titles in communications

If you want to start looking for career or volunteering opportunities, we have come up with a list of job titles you should use during your search.

• Public relations
• Social media
• Content marketer
• Digital marketer
• Writer
• Media relations
• Lobbying
• Sales
• Content creation
• Fundraising
• Public awareness

Just remember no matter the career path you choose, it should always be something you are passionate about. And whatever that is, you should always give it your all.

No matter the context, negative coverage about your business should be limited. However, catching criticism online might seem unavoidable for any businesses. Google reviews are the most important public figure to those who might be interested in your product. But sometimes they are not very thorough and vary in temperament. Nonetheless, they help customers make purchasing decisions.

Receiving negative feedback online is the same as in life; it’s painful at first, but if constructive can help us improve. The first step to dealing with a bad review is to care, and chances are that if you’re reading this, you already do. 

The two types of negative reviews

1. The spiteful

These are the grumpy reviews that are surprisingly customary in business. These are good indicators of your mistakes.

These reviews can be summed up as:

• I went by the store, but it was closed (at 1am probably)
• Staff was rude (bad day)

2. The memorable

This reviewer often takes the form of a constructive critic, they are good indicators of your shortcomings. The main difference between this and the other is that more care is put into the review. People are rational and often very considerate of business needs. For these types of reviews, seek reconciliation, the reviewer will be more understanding. 

3 steps on how to deal with negative reviews online

Step 1: Care

React professionally and be polite

Responding to the situation is crucial, but don’t rush into your response. It’s easy to take things personally even after you’ve had time to review and evaluate the comment. 

Research their complaint and take the time to really see things from the reviewer’s perspective.  Ask yourself:

• What exactly is the reviewer’s concern? What’s the severity of it?
• Is it a mild inconvenience or a major risk?
• Is there anyway we can solve their concern?
• How can we compensate them for the inconvenience?  

Show the reviewer that their opinion matters to you, after you have publicly addressed their concerns, take the issue off-line by providing an email address so together you can find a solution.

Having a conversation with them about these things shows that you care about the well-being of your customers, and respectfully asking them to remove the review, is far more effective once you’ve acknowledged their original complaint.

Step 2: Evaluate 

There is good in a bad review

A study by Harvard Business found that 95% of people see a flawless review page as being fabricated by the company, and understand a few negative reviews. 

If the bad review will not hurt your business, leave it. Negative reviews can benefit your business, often other customers will reply if the complaint is unreasonable and defend your services. If you only have glorious reviews, it will give the customers the impression that they are all manufactured. Having a few negative reviews can contribute to building trust, instead of diminishing it. 

Step 3: Adapt

Make it apparent

If you notice a specific review page that is giving you grief, consider campaigning for it. Encourage more and better reviews to dilute the others, and remind your customers that you have an open door communication policy, and that their needs matter to you.

It’s important, beyond reputation, to have the ability to adapt to negative reviews. What will double your return is the ability to show that you listen to other people’s challenges surrounding your business. Anything that is perceived to be broken (long wait times, for example) can be perceived as fixed (by adding more employees, or quality assurance). 

Takeaway

When monitoring reviews, think about your own experience as a customer. A few negative reviews are often summed up as just a bad experience because they can often be vague and they can easily be dismissed if there are other reviews to contradict them. 

If anything, these review sites should be used as a tool to help you monitor your business to better understand the needs of your customers. 

So where are you stuck?

Some business owners might say that only certain coverage is worth reacting to, but we challenge that belief. More eyes and ears on the internet will help keep you in the consumer’s mind. Check out our services to learn how we can help you listen and adapt to your clients’ needs.

In today’s day and age social media for any business is a must, but it can sometimes be overlooked.

With these quick tips – which you should you use right now –  you will have the basis covered to have a great social media presence.

Number 3 helps you get ahead.

5 social media advice for small business owners

1. Find your audience

Think about where your audience would expect to find you; or more importantly, would want to find you and with that start researching the various platforms to find your potential audience.

It’s really easy to get caught up in accounts that your business doesn’t really need. For example, Instagram might be soaring in popularity, but are you able to maintain consistent photographic content? Are you reaching the right audience with it? If not, you might want to try other platforms that are not image driven, like Facebook or Twitter.

2. Make sure you’re on the right platform

Users access social media platforms on various devices, either on laptops, phones and even TV. All have different formats, before you dive into a platform, know the purpose and tone of your brand and the different formats the platform can be accessed.

Not only should you be aware of the different platform formats, you should know what social platform your target audience is active on. If your audience is millennial, consider being on Instagram and Snapchat. If you want to reach out to other business owners, consider having a LinkedIn or Facebook page.

3. Get Comfortable

This is something to invest time into. Make sure you know your platform inside and out and know what the content you post should look like. Brand consistency is key on social media.

If you are new to social media, pace yourself and only start out on one platform before getting active on other ones. This will give you the chance to:

• become familiar with how to write for social media,
• how to engage with followers,
• and get comfortable with your visual identity.

Once you have the basics covered, you can then try other platforms that align with your business and your goals.

4. Aim to Grow

Now that you’ve really got everything under control, your next objective should be to grow your following.

This part is a little more grueling and difficult to define for each business and industry. Make sure that each of your posts have reason to be read, spoken to, and shared every time. Welcome new followers and take the opportunity to make social an enjoyable experience every time someone visits your profile.

5. Check on it!

If you use Hootsuite, or something similar, you follow a routine. You schedule your weekly posts and forget it, but this could cost you.

It’s important to monitor your accounts to see:

• how your followers are engaging with your content,
• what are your top performance posts, and
• what type of comments you are getting.

You need this data to be able to adapt and meet the needs of your followers.

So don’t be afraid to engage with your audience, and get a bit personal with the profile. Respond to live events, keep up with trends and be spontaneous. Monitor what other profiles similar to yours are doing and try new things.

Ready to start your social media presence?

That’s exactly what we’re here for. Sussex takes on social media planning and consultations from anywhere in Canada just hit CONTACT, and we’ll set you up and keep you updated.

To learn more about our services and offers.

Sign up for our newsletter below for more great tips.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram! 

Whether I’m attending a conference on behalf of Sussex or for leisure, live-tweeting is a great way to help raise awareness and to improve engagement.

What is live tweeting?

Live tweeting is when a Twitter user post comments about an event while it is taking place.

9 best practices for live tweeting

Before the event

When the plan is to live tweet during an event, it’s important to prepare your strategy beforehand so you can stay current and post relevant content.

1. Before the event you do your research

• Know the names and proper spelling of the speakers
• Research speaker and attendee Twitter handles
• Research the event hashtag or create your own
• Think about any questions your followers may have and prepare some answers
• Prepare a few tweets in advance for sessions you are hosting or attending

At the event

2. Let your followers know that you will attend the event

Post a tweet to give your followers a heads up that you will be a certain event. This provides them with an opportunity to visit your account for the latest updates.

3. Use the official event hashtag(s) in your posts

You can find the official hashtag(s) on the event website or social media profiles. Don’t use too many hashtags in your posts and use the main one instead.

If you decide to create a hashtag for an event you’re hosting, remember to keep it short, easy to remember, and be sure it’s not already in use.

4. Tag speakers in posts

It’s important to tag the right handle in a post. Use Twitter’s search engine or the event website to find the proper user names.  

5. Capture key messages

You don’t have to post word for word what was said during a session. Only post key points that are valuable to onsite participants as well as your wider following.

6. Tweet quotes from presenters

When you are quoting someone in your tweet, always attribute the quote and make sure you quote the speaker accurately. Try to find and include their Twitter handle, this will give them proper credit, as well as help you start a conversation.

7. Share backstage photos and videos

Content that contains images and video performs better than the ones without. Share high quality images and videos to increase engagement.

8. Engage with others

Engagement is a two-way street. Instead of pushing content:

• Try to respond to tweets from other participants
• Engage in conversation by agreeing or providing your own perspective
• Answer polls
• Retweet/like insightful comments from participants

9. Follow back

By using the event hashtag, your tweets will appear in the live stream and people will start following you. Follow them back so the newly created connections can extend to offline opportunities as well.

Live tweeting might be a short-term goal, but just like any just like your long-term communication objectives, you should have a plan in place.

Sussex can help you identify the right tools to help you plan and stay organize. Contact us to learn how we can help.  

In a previous post we questioned if email is dead. Since it’s not, we want to share a few tips to increase open and click-through rates through personalization.

What is email personalization?

Personalization in email marketing is creating an email campaign that is designed and tailored for a specific subscriber or a group in your distribution list. To personalize these emails, different segments of your audience needs to be created in order to provide them with timely and relevant content.

Segmentation can be by age, gender, location, and interest. But to create these segments you need data. You can collect this data by different means including newsletter subscription, product purchased, log in to a platform, app download, eBook download, etc.

Email personalization can be very basic, using the subscriber’s name, to very complex, changing the content in the body of the email to meet the need of that one reader.

Personalizing email campaigns has been proven to increase engagement rates and return on investment. The one reason we advocate email marketing is because of the possibilities to optimize the content to the need of the reader, which is rather difficult to do with social media, where everyone gets the same message.

Tips to personalized marketing email

1. Subject lines

A personalized subject line will entice subscribers to open the email. Use their name and avoid reusing generic headlines. This way your email stands out from the rest.

Some companies will use emojis to grab attention, but the best way to stand out is by using their name with a unique subject.

2. From field

The name in the from field in an email is the most dominant element that is displayed in your readers’ inbox. They will decide whether to open an email or not depending on the sender.  

In this case, do not use a “do not reply” or “no-reply” in the from field. Instead, it should be your company’s name or the name of an employee who sends the email (i.e., Jane from X Company).

Using the company name creates a sense of trust and your email doesn’t come across as spam.  

3. Email copy

Once the subscriber has opened the email, ensure that the content is relevant to them.

The email can be personalized by gender, location, services, or interest, and you can choose parts of the email to be personalized, including:

• salutation
  • ex. Hello Jane
• types of products
  • ex. books, clothing, service, etc.
• imagery
  • ex. dynamic images, gif, static images, or video
• call to action
  • ex. See my offers
• birthdate
  • ex. Happy birthday, Jane

4. Re-engagement emails

When a customer has engaged with you, but didn’t complete the user journey, use email personalization and automation for re-engagement.

You can use this tactic for when a costumer browed your website and didn’t complete a purchase or to inactive users by soliciting their feedback.

With personalization and automation, you can send your customer product recommendation based on a complete or abandoned purchase or browsing history. This technique is great for retailer and e-commerce sites as these emails can be created in real time.

Summary

Email personalization is great method to deliver audience-specific content. It improves user experience and journeys. The costumer feels valued as you take the time to tailor content that is timely and relevant to their interest.

Contact us for a consultation on how to optimize your communications strategy with email marketing.

What is a brand hashtag?

A brand hashtag works the same as a regular hashtag. The difference is that they are used on social media to signify that a post is associated with a brand, product or company.

They are unique to a business and they are found in the bio section on the user profile of the company social media account. Followers are invited to engage with the company by using the brand hashtag.

Why is a brand hashtag important?

There are many benefits of using a branding hashtag.

1. Brand hashtags make your brand more searchable on social media platforms

The primary function of a hashtag is to have your content appear in the search results of that hashtag. People will use various hashtags on their posts to reach a broader audience. Other times, hashtags will be created for a specific campaign so that all the posts associated with a topic can appear in the hashtag search.

In the case of branding hashtags, they are used in conjunction with thematic hashtags to not only have your posts appear in multiple searches, but also so that all the posts associated with your brand will appear under the search for that hashtag.

2. Brand hashtags are great for analytics

With a branding hashtag, you can track who is engaging with your brand and track its performance. Therefore, it is important to have a unique hashtag, so that the analytics only reflect content related to your brand and not other topics. It is very important that your audience knows the exact spelling of the hashtag so that it can be accurately tracked.

3. Brand hashtags can also be used across platforms

Many organizations are active on several platforms. When your brand hashtag is used across different channels, it becomes more recognizable to your audience because it’s being seen and marketed everywhere.

Tips to create your own brand hashtag

Your brand hashtag can be your company name, slogan, or tag line. That way you can ensure its uniqueness.

If your business name or the hashtag you want to use is common:

1. Conduct a search on all social media platforms to make that it’s not being used.
2. Keep it short to a maximum of three words, that way it’s easy to remember.
3. Avoid complex and long words to ensure correct spelling.  
4. Test it to eliminate any risks or problems. Write it out, say it out loud, ask your team members and a small group of your followers to review it before implementation.
5. When you are satisfied, promote the hashtag on all your social media accounts.   

While having good content, graphics, and appealing design are importing to have, there are structural elements they must have.

There are standard structural elements that visitors look for to be able to navigate the site and complete tasks intuitively.

When building a website, ask yourself:

What are the structural elements my webpages must have?

1. Header

The header is the first element a visitor will see when they come to your site. It’s usually a bar that takes up the width of the site and it contains the site’s identity. That bar never changes and stays in the same place throughout the site.

The header must have:

• a logo that link to the homepage;
• site name and tag line or slogan;
• main navigation menu; and
• a search box that is always visible and in the same place.

2. Navigation bar

This section is found in the website’s header, but it needs to be treated as an element of its own because this is how visitors will be able to navigate your site.

When creating the menu:

• use labels (e.g., Our Service) that convey the information that the user will find when they navigate to that section of the site; and
• test the links to ensure that they are functional and that they send the visitor to the right location.  

The navigation menu must also:

• be easy to locate;
• be consistent (placement and functions are the same across the website); and
• the site map and navigation are intuitive.

3. Main content

This section contains the more robust and unique content that is found on the website.

This is where you add text, images and graphics, and videos.

When creating regular webpages or landing pages ensure that:

• the page title is readable and is in an <h1> tag for accessibility;
• the breadcrumb navigation is visible above or below the page title;
• the navigation to related content is placed at the bottom of the page where the reader can navigate to other pages;
• the publication date is placed at the top of the page; and
• the last updated date is displayed at the bottom of the content area.

4. Footer

The footer is the last section of the site. Like the header, the information it contains never changes and is always in the same place on the website.

The footer is used to provide easy and quick access to popular content.

The information that is found in the footer varies from websites, but they are commonly used for:

1. legal information
   • copyright
   • privacy policylegal information
2. popular information
   • contact us link or form
   • newsletter subscriptionpopular information
   • social media buttons
   • careers
3. repeated navigation menu and search box