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Pinterest is now the fourth largest traffic driver globally.

Many people are still very confused as to how to use Pinterest for anything other than pinning mouth-watering photos of food and getting inspiration for your future wedding. As with any social media platform, if you approach it strategically you can really make it work for driving traffic and awareness to your brand. Once you get the hang of it, it’s actually a rather easy and engaging (and highly addictive) platform to use.

So here are our 6 ways to utilise Pinterest for your small business.

1. Join Pinterest For Business

One of the main benefits of joining Pinterest for business is gaining the access to Pinterest Analytics. This is a key feature if you are hoping to utilise Pinterest for your brand. Pinterest Analytics will give you access to data such as what exactly is being re-pinned from your website, how many people are re-pinning your images and it also allows you to discover the various interests that your particular audience has. Having access to this kind of insightful information allows you to refine your content and produce more of what your readers will enjoy and share.

2. Organise Your Boards

Allow your Pinterest profile to have purpose and clarity by keeping it organised, as after all, it is a representation of your brand. Categorise your boards by subject/theme and focus on them, delete all irrelevant and unused boards to ensure your profile looks neat and aesthetically pleasing – after all, Pinterest is an incredibly visual platform, so even these small details matter. Move your boards around, re-name them and give them eye-catching cover images. This way, as soon as someone lands on your Pinterest profile they will know exactly what to expect.

3. Pin Selectively But Consistently

As with any social media platform, it’s important to stay consistent. It’s no good to log on, pin like crazy for about an hour then disappear for a week or two. Pinning around 20-30 pins a day or every day keeps your profile balanced and consistent and will keep users coming back for more. At the same time, it’s important to be selective about the kind of content you pin – there’s no point pinning something irrelevant to your brand, or even worse, something that might constitute a bad reflection on your brand.

4. Stay On Trend

Whether it’s a holiday season or there is an event going on that is relevant to your brand, set up a board to reflect it! Pinning images to reflect a conversation happening on social media will keep your profile current and in trend.

5. Pin Directly From Your Website

It’s easy to integrate a Pin-It button onto your website, so why not? Generally, the human race is quite lazy, lets face it. So if you make it as easy as possible for users to pin a picture from your website/post – you’ll greatly increase the chances of that actually happening.

6. Promote, Promote, Promote!

If you want your targeted audience to actually find your Pinterest profile, direct them to it from your other social media sites. Even include a link to your Pinterest profile from your website itself. Make sure people are aware that your Pinterest actually exists!

You can do this for small business, however, you can also use these same features for your wedding, house inspirations, create a website around your wedding, such as Paul and Ciara’s wedding or even around your hobby. You can then add Pin-It button onto your website!

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Implementing a strong social media strategy can be difficult and time-consuming.

The reason any small business should implement a social media strategy is simple – to drive traffic to their business website and drive brand awareness. It’s understandable that it can sometimes feel impossible to stay on top of it all.

Thankfully, there are plenty of social media tools out there to make everything much easier. From scheduling posts, to gaining insights into your audience and more: here are 6 useful tools that will make social media marketing easy.

1. Analytics

Analytics is available in many shapes and sizes across a variation of social media platforms, for example – Facebook insights, Google Analytics and Twitter Analytics. When used appropriately, analytics can be a goldmine of information allowing you to see what is working in your marketing and where you have room to improve – which is undeniably important for a small business growing their online audience.

You will be able to see yearly, monthly, weekly and even daily summaries (varying across each platform) allowing you to draw up comparisons across any given periods. Analyzing this data allows you to experiment on your social media marketing techniques – particularly in the beginning, it’s all about trial and error and finding out what works for you and your brand. Paying attention to analytics is the best way to know first hand whether your marketing is working.

2. Buffer

Buffer is a content publishing platform, letting you publish and schedule content to your social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and recently, Pinterest. Being able to schedule your social media content saves you from worrying about being on hand all day to publish content when you can be getting on with other tasks.

Buffer also features analytics for each of your individual scheduled tweets. This allows you to monitor how well your scheduling strategy is doing, as you will be able to see how many users viewed the tweet at that set time of the day, how many favourited the tweet, how many retweeted, how many replied and how many clicked on any links that may have been included – so you can keep a close eye on it and experiment with your scheduling to see what kind of strategy works best for you.

3. TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a fantastic way to stay on top of all of the activity going on on Twitter. Twitter is a very fast paced social media platform and information can be easily missed on your feed – it’s sometimes near impossible to keep up with it all. TweetDeck allows you to catch all of the activity in one place. You can make individual columns for your general feed, your mentions, lists and more. This tool is particularly useful if you are monitoring hashtags – such as hashtags relevant to your brand or Twitter chat hashtags. TweetDeck will also allow for scheduling, so you’ll have another separate column for your scheduled tweets.

4. Canva and PicMonkey

Canva and PicMonkey are the perfect tools to use for creating eye-catching images and micro-content to publish to your social media profiles. Visual posts generally receive a higher level of engagement – as much as 18% for click-through rates, 89% more favourites and 150% more retweets – so with these two tools combined you can effortlessly put together your own visually appealing images that speak to your brand. Both tools are user-friednly and easy to navigate. With Canva having set dimensions for Twitter, Facebook ads and more, as well as pre-made text formats, it’s pretty quick when you get the hang of it.

PicMonkey gives you all of the features you need for editing images without the complicated layouts. It essentially removes the need for a small business to make the investment in Photoshop.

5. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is the perfect brainstorming tool for when you are thinking of creating content for your brand. The most challenging thing with creating content is trying to work out what kind of content your audience perceives as valuable and how you can go about creating it for your own brand. BuzzSumo allows you to analyze the best performing content for any niche. You can search for the topic you want to create content around and see whether these topics interest your audience, as it shows you sharing stats across different social media platforms. This will also allow you to identify what kind of content does best on which platform – so you will have a good idea of where your focus should be.

6. Social Bro

Social Bro gives you an in-depth analysis into your Twitter community in order to drive your Twitter strategy more efficiently. Social Bro has numerous features on offer, such as best times to tweet reports (which you can send straight to Buffer), hashtag monitoring, insights, analysis of competitors, it allows you to see who your new followers are, who your inactive followers are, who is not following you back and much more. The strategic use of Social Bro can optimize your Twitter usage in many more ways than what is available on Twitter alone.

Reviews

As well as social media is it good to show potential customer that you are trust worthy online, a good way to do with is collect reviews. You can do with Facebook if you are a local business or with platforms like TrustPlot. My Baggage our sister company collects reviews regularly and it now has over 2,000. This helps buyers trust you especially when ordering online.

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With over 100m daily users and approximately 400m snaps being sent each day, Snapchat could be a great new venture for your business’ social media marketing.

But what exactly is Snapchat?

It is essentially a video and photo messaging app which allows users to capture and send snaps, which are viewable only for a set duration within a 24 hour period, before they are automatically deleted. The fast-growing social media platform ranks fourth among the top social media sharing sites, and so it has the potential to be a highly beneficial marketing strategy for your business.

So how can this be an effective platform for marketing?

Snapchat’s core users are 13-24 year olds, so if your business caters for that age bracket then the possibilities are endless. Unlike Instagram or Pinterest where your content is carefully selected and organised, Snapchat is much less curated and from a much more realistic viewpoint. The spontaneity of Snapchat is what gives it a more authentic feel and allows your audience to get a different kind of look into your brand.

Here are 6 Ways To Promote Your Business Using Snapchat.

1. Cross platform activation

Although it isn’t so easy to find and follow accounts on Snapchat, you are certainly able to share your username or QR code on your various social media platforms to bring your existing audience across. Similarly, encourage your Snapchat audience to visit your other social media platforms too. Encourage your audience to follow you on Snapchat for exclusive content that can’t be seen on your other platforms!

2. Exclusive content

Snapchat gives you an opportunity to make your audience feel special in ways other social media platforms just can’t. Direct snaps to one person or a group of selected individuals is only viewable for a set duration before it is automatically deleted. Similarly, snaps that you add to your story are viewable for up to 24 hours before they are gone. This gives you the opportunity to give something to your audience that they wouldn’t normally have access to and it’s going to feel personal to them. Whether it be a sneak peek of a new product launch or something similar – give your Snapchat following something exclusive to get excited about your brand.

3. Behind the scenes access

In a similar fashion, giving your viewers some behind the scenes access will make them feel like part of the brand. It could be a live event that you are attending on behalf of your business, perhaps one your business is hosting or even a relevant on-brand event. Visual social media platforms such as Instagram do – in a sense – limit what you can share before you start clogging your followers’ feeds and they start unfollowing. With Snapchat, you can keep your viewers engaged with whatever it is you’re up to for an entire day if you really want to – without getting on anyone’s nerves.

 4. Partner with influencers

Similar to an Instagram or Twitter takeover, businesses can partner with on-brand influencers to give their viewers a unique perspective. Taking the time to research some influencers in your niche could unveil a list of possibilities for exciting content to share with your followers. Partnering with an on-brand influencer gives your audience someone they can relate to and this is a sure-fire way to grab their attention.

5. Encourage engagement

As with any social media platform, your aim is for your audience to engage with your brand. Snaps on your story will last for no longer than 24 hours, so this is perfect for planning and creating brief yet effective campaigns. Encourage your followers to view your snaps to be able to screenshot a discount code to use, for example. Get your viewers involved – ask them to snap you their opinions or responses to a question you pose to them. Open up a direct line of communication and become a brand that is friendly and approachable.

6. Know your audience

Ultimately, Snapchat marketing isn’t going to work for everyone – but if your brand caters to the type of people who use the app on a daily basis, you can make it work for your brand. Understand how your audience use Snapchat and remember that they are primarily using it for fun, so you should be too! Of all social media, Snapchat is one where you can really allow a sense of personality to shine and allow people to fall in love with your brand.

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If run a small business, Instagram can be a great social media platform for you to portray the more visual side to your brand, where necessary.

Visuals are key when it comes to building brand awareness, so there are so many ways in which Instagram can enrich your growth. Here are 4 ways to use Instagram more effectively for your business.

1.Embrace the hashtag

What sets the hashtag on Instagram apart from any other social media platform is that you are wholly encouraged to use it to your hearts content – within reason of course. Using a good number of hashtags in each of your posts can really work to your advantage.

Twitter, for example, recommends using at most two hashtags per tweet. This is because the more hashtags used, the more their strength is devalued. With Instagram, it’s a completely different story. Each individual hashtag will instantly connect you with a user who is searching for something under that term – so use a good number of hashtags that are relevant to what you’re posting and your brand.

To keep your image and the caption looking as aesthetically pleasing as possible, try posting your hashtags into a comment underneath the image, as opposed to having the caption section looking clogged and messy. This way, when users start commenting, it looks a little bit neater. Do post your hashtag quickly however, otherwise it will get lost in the Instasphere. The first few seconds after posting your image are vital.

2. Be insightful

As with any social media platform, it’s always important to know your audience. Iconosquare is a great tool which helps you look into the statistics surrounding your Instagram. It will give you all kinds of information such as when your followers are most active and where they are inputting the most engagement. Having these kind of insights will help you get to know your audience, so you will know what you can do to better connect with them.

Another wonderful feature of Iconosquare is that it allows you to see which of your hashtags brought you the most success – this will really help you to refine your list of hashtags down to what is working for you and what might need some tweaking.

3. Be aesthetically pleasing

It’s no secret that Instagram is all about the visuals. People will be drawn to a feed that looks aesthetically pleasing, so this is really what you should aim for with your content! Having clear, bright images and a running theme relevant to your brand can really draw people to your feed and want to keep coming back for more.

One Northern Irish-based business Instagram that puts this into practice so well is @lushbelfast. Their feed is full of beautiful, colourful and fun images. And so their feed is instantly appealing.

Another that does this well is @bootleggersbelfast, with their feed full of mouth-watering dishes available from their menu.

4. Engage with your audience

Instagram is a community, as are all social media platforms. And so it is so much more than simply uploading a photo and running. Taking the time to engage with your followers will show that your brand is approachable, friendly and fun all while growing brand awareness. Doing something as simple as asking questions in your captions and taking the time to respond to your comments can be so highly beneficial. Don’t be afraid to build friendships with your followers to show how much you value them.

Again, @lushbelfast are pros at engaging with their followers. They’ll ask questions, respond to comments and they’ll even feature customers who come into their store on their Instagram. For a brand, nothing is more appealing than a friendly, approachable personality!

@bootleggersbelfast will often re-gram their customers images to put onto their own feed, which is a fantastic way to make their customers feel valued and like part of the brand.

5. Be consistent and persistent

Consistency is an important factor when it comes to growing your Instagram following. It will never look good to see that your latest post was 12 weeks ago – yet at the same time, it’s never a good idea to post too much – it’s important to find the balance. Posting on your Instagram once a day is plenty and enough for your audience to want to keep coming back for more. Posting too many times in one day will clog your followers feeds, potentially resulting in a loss of followers for you. Quality over quantity is key – particularly with such a visual platform.

Which just brings us to another thing we love so much about the @lushbelfast Instagram account. They post at least once a day and it’s always something new, fresh and exciting – whether it be a beautiful photo or video they are always on top of their content.

Instagram is one social media platform that can be quite difficult to grasp, especially in terms of growth and engagement. That’s why it’s so important to be persistent – it’s one social media platform that is likely to creep up more gradually than the rest – but over time you will see your efforts paying off.
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Growing your Facebook page is one thing – getting people talking and sharing is another.

When you’re running a Facebook page for your business, it’s very easy to just focus on the amount of likes you are accumulating. When in actual fact, a high level of engagement on your business’ Facebook page is much more valuable than the number of likes you have. Without an engaging audience, your Facebook page isn’t going to grow any more substantially.

If you’re struggling to get your head around it all – don’t feel like you’re alone. Many businesses are feeling stuck in the same rut, not really knowing what steps they should take in order to obtain a highly engaging audience without having to dig deep into their pockets. Luckily for you, we’ve put together a few helpful tips for you to learn how to increase engagement on your business Facebook page – without having to spend.

1. Embrace all forms of media with open arms.

Embracing various types of media is a key aspect in growing your engagement on Facebook. We all know everyone loves to share videos and photos with their friends, and so these types of posts generally have high levels of engagement. It’s the perfect way to make your page come alive. Tools such as Canva give you the freedom to create your own graphics – even something as simple as an image quote can work wonders in terms of engagement. In terms of videos, uploading these directly to Facebook as opposed to simply sharing a YouTube link will work in your favour, giving you a much greater reach. Don’t be afraid to shake it up with the types of media you post on your page, because Facebook will ultimately reward you for it.

2. Be insightful.

With Insights, you are able to see when the people who like your page are most active on Facebook. Looking at these stats allows you to determine your optimum times of the day for posting your content. Insights will also allow you to see which of your type of posts are getting the most engagement – what’s working and what’s not. This will give you a good guideline on what kind of content you should continue to produce and what you should perhaps experiment with – and don’t be afraid to do so. Social media in general is all about trial and error.

3. Share, share and share some more.

Facebook is an online community, and so it is highly favourite for your page to share content from others. Shares generally have a much greater reach, as you are giving users the chance to find content they may not have found otherwise. It makes your page more engaging and enticing for new users thanks to the diversity in content.

4. Consistency is key.

The worst thing you can do is post on your Facebook page and then abandon it for weeks. Or similarly, only post every now and again. To grow your Facebook engagement you need to be consistent, posting as regularly as necessary for your business. It does take time and commitment – and luckily, you can schedule your posts so you don’t always have to be on hand to do so. Again, Insights can give you a good guideline for when you should schedule your posts so that you have the potential to reach your largest audience.

5. Get to know your audience.

A high level of engagement is what you’re aiming for with your Facebook page – so what better way to do this than to speak directly to your fans? Ask them questions and respond to their answers! People love to have someone to talk to and they love to voice their opinions, and so will ultimately engage more with a brand which is approachable and has a sense of personality.

6. Implement a good balance of content.

It’s very important to have a personality behind your Facebook page. Yes, you’re a business, but you don’t want to sound particularly business-y all of the time, because it will put people off. Instead, don’t be afraid to be yourself – establish a real voice that users will feel like they can relate to, and don’t be afraid to have a sense of humour!

Alas, the reason you’ve created a Facebook page in the first place is to promote your business. Therefore, having a good balance of content is important. Implementing the 70:20:10 ratio is a good place to start – 70% of your posts to increase brand awareness, 20% shared content and 10% promotional – ultimately giving you good variation in what you post.

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