Social and Digital Marketing by Sarah Thurstenson, Sarah Thurstenson Design Siloam Springs Women in Business Third Meet and Greet Social media can rule our lives these days. Can't live with it can't live without our phone glued to us! As owners of our own small businesses, we change hats and have to become our own social marketing department and learn what works and how to keep ourselves and our businesses in front of their eyes. We also have to plan for the future when we can't handle it on our own anymore -- either to keep our sanity, or our baby business grows beyond our abilities to manage all the social media demands ourselves. I needed to know this vital information, so I decided to include my friends in Siloam Springs to learn along with me. The third Siloam Springs Women in Buisiness Meet & Greet met at The Brick Ballroom, a brand new event center to downtown owned by Heather Lanker who also owns Heather Hill Clothing. Co on Broadway. The Brick Ballroom was a part of Dave's Appliance store and has been divided into smaller businesses with the renovation/creation of the event space. Heather Lanker says the next phase will be an apartment in the back where they will house their family. This is so she can work 24/7 and never leave! Chickadee's Fresh Fare treated us all to their amazing tomato soup, croissants, and ginormous cookies! The coffee and tea hit the spot! We are so grateful they catered but also to be able to support and encourage Stephanie Truitt as she journeys on with this new adventure in restaurant ownership. Karen Tucker brought us a spot of wine which upgraded our meeting considerably! To help us all understand the changes in Facebook algorithms and how to use our time to our advantage, I invited Brandee Segraves, the founder of Engaging Brand Solutions to speak at our Siloam Springs Women in Business Meet & Greet. I have recently met her through a contractors group. Her business provides several tiers of options including DIY all the way up to full service social media management. We all need to be thinking about the next thing to grow into and how to manage our advertising so I knew she was the right one to talk to our group and thrilled when she said yes!
She gave us an overview of the social platforms, their popularity and effectiveness and graciously answered all the questions we shot to her! Here are some of the highlights of the discussion. Facebook changes in organic reach Facebook's priorities are to keep things social and personal to keep people engaged with each other. If you want to advertise they will limit your reach because they know that people don't want this in their feed. They also are selling ads and have now limited organic reach to less than 1%. The good news is they make ads affordable and easy for you to target the people who WANT to know about you and your product. This makes Facebook ads continue to be the best form of advertising available. We are the customer Facebook wants to please Keep it social. If you don't like sales laden ads in your feed all the time, don't do it to your friends and customers. People want to know you and who you are and if you can do business together. Show your true self and let them find your business. Boosting vs. ads Boosting is like a blast that goes out randomly to random people's feed. It is cheap and better than organic, but not as effective as a targeted ad groomed to meet your specific audience. Boost when you need to send something fast or instant. Make an ad when trying to send a message. Google Ad words and remarketing It was asked if Google Ad Words were still a powerful tool. Brandee answered that they were not as effective as remarketing tools. Remarketing ads are the ones above, below and beside that correspond with the searches you have made on the device where you searched for an item. Facebook is integrating this feature into their advertising offerings soon. Website SEO SEO is MAIN thing to keep up with and keep up to date. Engaging Brand Solutions offers an audit of your website and social platforms. Using the report will help you fix and enhance your sites yourself or they can do it for you. They give you a report of how to improve your effort. Blogging Blogging continues to be the #1 way to help your SEO and point people to your site. Don't cram it with SEO and searchable terms, but talk about your product, service and vision of your company and share experiences. Be relevant. I like to think of it as a journal entry of your thoughts and experiences told to your friends as they pertain to your business. All the words in a blog will bring attention of Google search engines and they will find you. Hashtags and how to use them Hashtags are a grouping tool that leads others who are like minded to your posts. Linkedin now has a hashtag capability. Per post, Facebook only likes 1-2, and Instagram 11+. Popular Hashtags to use now are #goals and #2018. I will advise to always check the hashtag you want to use to see if it is associated with another group or event before using. Posting frequency Brandee talked about the "Jab, jab, jab, right hook" method. Give more of yourself and your life and earn the right to talk about your business as a part of your life. Giving 5 personal posts per business post. Less talk about your business in text is better and Facebook will not limit the reach. Best Facebook posts 1. Live Stream Video - Find a way to get used to it! you don't have to be perfect--be authentic. People are looking for others who are authentic and real 2. Posted Video 3. Photo and text. Least effective-Text only. Response time speaks Care about responding to messages quickly. Return a message or it can discourage a potential customer and ruin your response rate on Facebook. If you are needing some advice or if you are needing someone to just DO your social media so you can do other things, check out Engaging Brand Solutions and let them audit your digital assets. Feel confident about navigating this sea of social. It's here to stay so get on board! |
Sarah ThurstensonGraphic Designer with awesome clients, happy wife, mother of two with a thought about this and that, Sarah is also the owner and instructor for Something From Nothing Paint Parties-On location custom canvas painting parties. Archives
February 2020
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