Having a Facebook page is no longer a luxury! In today's world, if you have a business, it is almost inevitable that you will have a Facebook page. But how do you optimise it so that you can get the best possible results from it?

1. Start off with your page name. Choose a name that is possibly the same across all your social media platforms. Usually this will be your business name or if that is not available you can use some variations but usually people will search by the business name so make sure you find a search-friendly user name. Don't choose a name thinking that you can easily change it later as changing page names can be tricky.

2. Another way to make your Facebook Page more discoverable is with a vanity URL. For example mine is www.facebook.com/socialthyme Once your Page has 25 Likes, you can set a custom URL. 

3.Choose a cover photo that reflects your brand or business. If there is text on the cover photo, when viewed on mobile, it is likely that the text will get cut off so be careful with that. Alternatively choose a cover photo without text. It is a good practice to change the cover photo every couple of weeks as it creates interest.

3. Fill in the about section of your business. Make sure you add your business website and depending on your business, you might want to add a customer response time and address etc. Think about what kind of information your clients might need and make it easy for them to contact you. People love contacting businesses via their Facebook pages whether it's about a problem they are having or when they are happy about your products/services and they want to share it with the wider world.

4. You can add a call-to-action button such as "learn more" as seen above. Depending on your business, you can choose "Download the app", "book services" etc. You might want to try different buttons and see what resonates best with your audience.

5. There are different type of templates which you can choose according to your business. You can find this option under edit page. For example if you have a restaurant there is a special template and if you are a service based entrepreneur, there is a different template that will serve you better. You can find the edit page option under the settings.

6. Choose your audience so that Facebook shows your page to more relevant people. You can access this option from the settings. You can choose the demographics of your audience and their interest and language. This will help Facebook to put your page in front of the people who I am targeting. As a social media manager,I prefer to engage with people in the UK who are entrepreneurs and business owners. I can potentially target any country in the world or any English speaking country and I might get people following and engaging but the I am not doing this because I'd rather reach to people who are more likely to buy from me.

These are just a few easy steps to use Facebook strategically for your business. Facebook constantly changes things around, adds new features etc. So every now and then, go to the settings of your page and check if there is anything that's new  and if relevant for you, use it!

If you need more ideas to improve your page, read this: 7 tips to improve your Facebook page 
7 social media tips that you can start implementing straight away
If you need more help, please get in touch.

If you have never used Twitter before, it can feel a bit daunting. How can you possibly tell something in just 140 characters? Do you need to read every tweet? How do you use those hashtags? Should you follow everyone who follows you? 
​
Twitter is one of my favourite social media platforms. Unlike some other social media platforms, there is no barrier between you and your followers and this is fantastic! But how can you make the most of this fabulous tool to grow your community?

1. First things first: Optimise your profile. Your Twitter bio should clearly indicate what you do in your business with a link to your landing page. No one wants to follow an egg, so don't forget to change your profile photo either with a professional head shot or your logo.

2. Every second, on average, around 6,000 tweets are tweeted on Twitter. It simply is not possible to  to read every tweet from everyone you follow. The best thing you can do is to segment the people you want to follow into groups. 

 You can add anyone by clicking on the gear icon  on their profile and then click on to add/remove from lists. You can set your lists as public or private. If you add someone to a public list they receive a notification of this. However they don't if it's a private account.
                                                                   
                    











​




3.Now that you have Twitter lists, have set times throughout the day-maybe once in  the morning,once around lunch time and once in the evening depending on your schedule. Spend 10-15 minutes engaging with the people in your lists. Reply their questions, share their content, retweet their tweets. Be helpful and be kind. This is how you connect with people and build relationships with people on Twitter. 

4.Use images to stand out from the crowd. Twitter is like a traffic lane with hundreds and thousands of tweets at a minute. To get the attention you need to stand out with your visuals: branded images, gifs and so on. If you need some help with this, here are my favourite tools to create social media images that convert.

​5. Be consistent. Use a scheduler to share curated and created content that will add value to your followers. It's okay to tweet the same content a couple of times through out the day. This will let you catch different audiences at different times. As long as you share great content, people don't complain!

6. People use the hashtag symbol (#) before a relevant keyword or phrase in their Tweet to categorize those Tweets and help them show more easily in Twitter search. For example if you search #smtips you can find lots of social media tips. I can simply search this hashtag on Twitter and if I think something worth sharing, I can retweet them to my followers. Spend some time to research your industry specific hashtags and make a note of them so you can use them later. 

Don't use too many hashtags! One to two hashtags are enough and research shows that these tweets get more reach than those with more hashtags. You also want to leave some space for people to retweet your tweet so it's good to be careful about this. 

You can also come up with your own hashtags. For example if you're running a campaign you can come up with a catchy hashtag like #ThisGirlCan. You can also use a branded hashtag to create brand awareness. For instance, I could use #SocialThyme to create brand awareness. However no one is likely to search this hashtag on Twitter, I would only use it for brand awareness. The second hashtag would be to use an industry specific one, for example #socialmediamarketing which is what people would be searching on Twitter.

7.Use Twitter Chats to increase your reach and grow your following. There are many industry or location specific tweet chats happening every day. These are set hours that are held once a week. They are usually hosted by one twitter account, and the host will encourage networking and interaction between the people who participate in the chat. Here is a list of Twitter Hours happening in the UK. The list is not very up to date so do check if it's still happening before you start posting.

8. Use a @ before their name to mention someone. They'll get a notification of the post. It’s common when people tweet a link to a blog post from your site or if customers are commenting about your company. Once you send a Tweet mentioning another account, they’re likely going to reply and @mention you. Getting an @mention in Tweets makes your account more visible as your tweet is now going to be seen by their followers and this in turn can help you earn new followers. Engaging with industry influencers in this way helps you grow your account.

9. Finally, if you are only pushing out automated content, you are just broadcasting which puts people off. Think of Twitter as an online party. You wouldn't go to a party and start selling your products, would you? Share great content, engage with people, build relationships and sales will follow.

If you have any other tips, please share them in the comments. If you feel you don't have the time/don't feel inclined about using Twitter yourself and would rather someone else manages it for your business, please get in touch.

A couple of weeks ago Instagram rolled out an amazing new feature: They introduced location and hashtag stories on the explore page.
What does this mean for you and how can you utilise this for  your business?
Here is a story I shared earlier today with the location sticker of my town Guildford.  ​

Using the  location sticker gives my story more context. Anyone in Guildford can see the stories on their explore page in the Instagram app.

At the time of publishing this post the story got 47 views and 41 of these were from the Guildford story! Bear in mind that the story is there for 24 hours so this number will increase. For comparison, you can see the story on the left which I shared yesterday,reached only 35 people as I did not use a location or hashtag sticker.
There is so much potential in this! If you have a cafe/restaurant or a local shop or if you are organising a local event, a training; you can reach the local people with this tool. You can reach the travellers in your area. If you are at a conference, you might be able find some people who you might want to network with.
Now let's click on the Guildford sticker and see what happens: It gives me the option of viewing the top posts.

There is a beautiful cake from a local blogger, a photo from a local music store, a local photographer, a floral farmer which I might consider to follow and engage with. As you can see it gives me the option of connecting with a variety of people in my town.
Similarly if you use a hashtag sticker, for example #Fashion #LondonFilmFestival etc on your story you can use that to reach people outside of your followers. 
​It is not out there yet, but if the rumours are true, soon there will be a search option within the stories.
​I hope this gives you some ideas about how to utilise the  Instagram Stories location feature for your business.
Read this if  you are not sure how to get started with  Instagram stories. As always if you have any questions or need help with your social media, just send me an email. 
​

One of the questions I frequently get asked is "Which social media platforms should I be using for my business?" I have written a post about this a couple of weeks ago. Ideally, you should be on at least three of the platforms however if you are a solopreneur juggling all the demands of your business or if have never used any of the platforms before, this can feel very overwhelming.

Each platform is different and each one requires a different strategy and tactics. Cross posting or linking the accounts just doesn't cut it. If you really want to see benefits from social media marketing, you need to invest in time and effort to create and curate content and do the engagement with your community. Setting up the accounts and posting whenever you can without a strategy will not bring you leads.
Consistency is the key. You need to show up every day! You need to be posting valuable content, educating your audience about your products or services whilst engaging with your community and the wider world. ​
So what do you do?  

I believe that less is more, even in social media! I would highly recommend that you start small. Decide how much time you have and choose one or two platforms to start with.