In Other News: Insta Introduces Subscriptions, Facebook Adds New Features And Meta Develops Framework For ‘Virtual Influencers’

January 24, 2022 Rachel Fox Facebook, Instagram

This week, we bring you more of the latest social media news to keep you on your toes and, most importantly, up-to-date with all things social!

Instagram Introduce Subscriptions

In a bid to help their creators make a living through their platforms, Meta have pulled together a host of tools allowing them to do so.

The new monetisation feature on Instagram will not only allow creators to earn money from their audience, brand partnerships and advertising products/services, but it will also help them to earn money directly from Instagram and Facebook.

The Subscription tool was previously launched on Facebook in 2020, however, Meta have since said they are now ready to bring it to Instagram following positive feedback. It should help creators build stronger and deeper connections with like-minded followers and in turn, grow their income by giving their subscribers exclusive access to content and benefits on Instagram.

Facebook Introduces New Feature for Creator Studio

This week, Facebook announced they are set to introduce new and exciting features for Creator Studio. Creator Studio is a great platform for anyone working in the digital marketing or the social media industry.

Users will be able to preview their stories when they upload a video, which should help attracting attention to the full video on the user’s page. In addition to this, a timeline view will be added to allow users to check out how their posts will appear on a follower’s feed.

Meta is developing ‘Ethical Framework’ for the use of virtual influencers

Due to the rise of VR & AR technologies, virtual influencers are becoming more popular and normal across social media. As a result, Meta have said they wish to develop clearer boundaries to prevent potential influential harm. They believe there should be a degree of transparency when it comes to virtual influencers to avoid any damaging consequences to followers.

Want to know more about what’s going on in social media? Get in touch with me at [email protected] to chat!

How To Get Your Content Seen On Instagram In 2022

January 17, 2022 Rachel Fox Insights, Instagram, Small business

Is your brand set to stay ahead of the constant algorithm changes on Instagram?

Ever since the platform moved away from reverse-chronological and to a curated content feed in 2017, it’s not always an easy question to answer.

Based on what we know about how the algorithm works and what we’ve seen firsthand, growing your reach and engagement is certainly possible in a curated feed. Below we have taken some time to share our top tips to help maximise the chance of your organic content reaching far and wide.

1. Find your niche

In order to grow your following, you need to understand your target demographic. By taking time to understand this first you will eliminate the chance of people hitting that dreaded unfollow button when they see they don’t relate to the content you are sharing.

Have a think about who your ideal audience is and how you would like them to interact with your social media account and brand. Although it’s great to be multi-faceted, if you have an activewear brand and empowering people on their fitness journey is your focus, you will be looking for exercise and sport enthusiasts to begin with. Before you start uploading content, it’s important to keep this in mind in order to help you stay on, thus helping you reach your goals.

2. Share higher quality content

Instagram has said it themselves, you are more likely to rank higher in your followers’ feed if you are sharing “great content”. Of course content – much like art – is subjective and whilst you may think the content is great, the Instagram algorithm may disagree.

Understandably, the platform hasn’t shared any specific details on this but as long as your content is high-quality and eye-catching (think bright and bold, like a breathtaking landscape shot of Edinburgh Castle in the summer), your audience will more likely be stopped in their tracks so that they can hit the like button!

It may be that the content you are sharing is already considered “great”. If you don’t feel like you’re quite there, get in touch and we will be more than happy to help you get on the right path.

3. Post more portrait content

Yes…really! For so long we all got used to posting all of our content in a 1:1 ratio, as that’s all that we were able to do. Quite a while ago now Instagram allowed users to post in 2:3 and shortly after they finally made the max ratio 4:5.

There’s no fancy explanation as to why you should avoid posting in 2:3 and try to post as much content as possible in 4:5 (or 1:1 square formats as a minimum). It simply allows you to take up as much of the screen as possible. Meta, who owns both Facebook and Instagram, revealed that on a desktop computer, the average attention span is 2.5 seconds, but on mobile, it is only a mere 1.7 seconds. Basically, the more screen space you take up (with “great content” like we mentioned previously, of course) the more likely you are to capture the attention of viewers.

4. Craft more gripping captions

Have you ever been endlessly scrolling Instagram and finally an image or video catches your eye, but you don’t really know what you’re looking at? To save the frustration, try and keep your followers engaged with great copy that explain what they are seeing with clarity!

It’s no secret that people like to feel connected to accounts they follow on Instagram (especially brands!) and copy can be key when building on those connections. It’s a space where you can show your brand’s personality while still being informative or descriptive. Consumers like simple yet intriguing text to read and captions are the perfect way to embody that.

Copywriting is a difficult skill to master. If you find your brand needing help with this we suggest contacting our two incredible copywriters Freya ([email protected]) and Lucy ([email protected])!

5. Publish more video content

Director of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, recently finished a talk in June of this year where he announced the platform is getting ready to pivot in order to compete with leading app TikTok with the sentence “We are no longer a photo-sharing application or an application to share square photos”. During this same talk, it was established that with the new changes the platform has now implemented, video content would be given priority over photos to remain in force.

If this is not reason enough to start focusing on video content, then we don’t know what is. Instagram is constantly changing but with these changes we now have multiple ways to publish our video content such as stories, reels and Instagram TV.

6. Use hashtags to your advantage

Hashtags can be a brilliant way to reach new audiences on the platform. Considering they require very little effort and are free to use, when using them correctly you will find people who are interested in your content coming straight to your page.

In order to make the most out of your hashtags, we suggest:

Play around with the amount of hashtags you are using along with the placement of them (currently it seems hiding around 3-7 hashtags in your caption works well!).
Snoop around on the app before posting to find out what hashtags are working that are relevant to your brand and industry.
Keep a list! If you can make a note of the hashtags you are using then you will see overtime what is working for you. This will also allow you to easily change up the hashtags you are using every so often which in turn will help you reach more people.

7. Post during peak hours

Lastly, it goes without saying that you should be posting when your target demographic is most active and engaging with your content. Optimal posting times can change from brand to brand but this is where Insights come into play.

When on a business account, you will have access to a special ‘Insights’ tab which is full of great data. It will allow you to see what days and times your content is generating the most impressions and interactions! This will help you see when the majority of your following is online. The more consistently you are posting, the more data the app will gather for you and help you in the long run.

When you finally are able to suss out your optional posting hours, we still recommend spacing out posts and not cramming in multiple posts within a small time frame. This won’t help your content get more attention and may have your following feeling inundated with your brand (we can all agree that we don’t want this!). If you do have multiple images you want to be seen, consider making them into a carousel post.

We could probably go on and on with more tips and tricks on how to make sure your content is getting shared to as many people as possible. However, these are the 7 tips we think will be most helpful in getting you started.

Need some inspiration for your social media marketing? To get a free audit of your current social strategy, get in touch at [email protected].

Why Video Subtitles Matter And How To Make The Most Of Them

December 13, 2021 Rachel Fox Design, Insights

It’s no surprise that social media platforms have started to push video content more and more to users over the past few years. In fact, studies show that 54% of consumers want to see more video content from a brand or business they support. But do you know how often these videos are watched without any sound?

Subtitles support ‘sound off’ preferences

During a study carried out by Verizon, it was discovered that 50% of participants tend to watch videos without sound – rising to 69% when watching in public places – and that 80% are more likely to watch an entire video when captions are available.

It has also been widely reported for years that Facebook users watch up to 85% of videos on the platform with the sound off. These studies strengthen the idea that in order to portray your message successfully, whether sharing content from your personal account or brand, it’s worth adding subtitles in order to keep viewers engaged.

Subtitles make your content more accessible

If the reason above hasn’t sold you on the idea of using subtitles on all video content you are sharing, this one should do the trick. More than 5% of the world’s population require rehabilitation to address their ‘disabling’ hearing loss. If you take inclusivity and accessibility seriously as a brand, you will have acknowledged the importance of subtitles for video content in this context.

Whilst we are on the topic of accessibility, subtitles can also be a great way of expanding your audience to a global level. Perhaps the best-recognised use of subtitles is to make video content available in different languages. Translated subtitles are usually faster and more cost-effective to create than recording a different soundtrack for each language you’re targeting.

Subtitles improve video SEO

Lastly, subtitling can also help improve SEO! As long as your subtitles aren’t embedded directly into the video image, search engine crawlers and algorithms will be able to pick them up…and who doesn’t want to improve their SEO so that their videos are easier to find?

So, how can you make the most of subtitling?

Make sure there is a high contrast between the text and background
Ensure your guidelines meet industry guidelines and are large enough to read
Spend time perfecting the subtitles when translating into another language
Avoid presenting too much text on-screen at a time
Offer an additional option to display closed captions
Use a clear, legible typeface
Allow enough time for each subtitle to be read
Position subtitles at centre/bottom and avoid clashes with other UI elements
Distinguish between speakers
Ensure subtitles cover all important dialogue and can be turned on before any need to be displayed

Need some inspiration for your social media marketing? To get a free audit of your current social strategy, get in touch at [email protected].

3 Tips for Using Social Media as a Small Business

October 4, 2021 Rachel Fox Business, Small business, Social Media

Hey there, Rachel here! Last month I joined the wonderful PFM team as a creative content producer. As you may have guessed from the job title, I am obsessed with almost everything to do with design. Although graphic design has my heart, I love experimenting in other creative areas such as rug tufting, painting, sewing…the list goes on. This love developed into a small business last year which is where the real learning process began!

Social media is something we all use and are comfortable with in our day-to-day lives. When you’re starting out as a small business, social media can be a key step to ensure success is around the corner…but only if you’re using it correctly. As well as being completely free to use, there are almost double the amount of active social media users browsing different social channels each day compared to just five years ago. So why should small businesses let this opportunity go to waste?

On average, each user spends around 2.5 hours scrolling per day, although the screen time feature on my iPhone has let me know on numerous occasions that my scrolling time is much higher than this – oops. These few hours offer an incredible opportunity for you to grow your business by building brand awareness, connecting with your audience or even making direct sales through different channels.

Having some experience running a small business, here are some tips I’ve learned along the way on how best to utilise social media for your business!

1. Choose your platforms

To ensure you’re using social media effectively for business, I cannot emphasise how important it is to do some research! It can be easy to assume which social platforms your target market is using regularly, but you may be shocked when you get down to the nitty gritty figures.

For example, you may assume that the average age of Facebook users is between 35-55. With this thought in mind, you may be inclined to skip over this platform when trying to reach a younger demographic and jump straight into both Instagram and TikTok. However, according to Digital 2021, surprisingly almost a quarter of Facebook users are aged 18-24.

It’s always great to start on the platform(s) your desired audience are using and build from there. That’s not to say you cannot and should not use other social platforms as well! Trialling new platforms and different channels can be great for expanding your audience and meeting different business goals. The beauty of social media is that you don’t need to take an all-or-nothing approach: experimenting can be fun, insightful and is all part of the process.

2. Consistency is key

No matter what you may be selling or what service your business is offering, posting consistently will help build strong relationships with your target audience. This doesn’t mean you’ll constantly need to bring out new products and offer new services every other day: posts can simply be about keeping your audience in the loop. Sharing what’s going on behind the scenes, resharing products and services you already offer or even having some fun and jumping on board with current trends can help create a buzz and build excitement.

Basically, don’t go radio silent and disappear completely! With all this being said, I believe it’s also necessary to touch on the importance of keeping your audience’s current needs in mind. Making sure you are up-to-date with what is going on in the world (especially within your target audience) is key as social media is constantly changing. What might have worked last year or even last month may not work today!

3. Have fun and be creative!

In my opinion, coming from a background and love for all things design, this is arguably the most important tip when it comes to posting on social media as a small business. You’ve got to be loving the content you’re creating and putting out into the world for everybody to see.

Now more than ever with how many posts we see per day, it’s clear to users when a brand hasn’t put thought into their content. These posts will be met with a quick swipe of the finger and likely never to be viewed again! If you’re not enjoying creating your content then you can’t expect viewers to engage.

As I mentioned before, it’s not a secret that social media is constantly evolving. With this comes each individual platform adding new features for us to creatively play about with. Even switching between static imagery, video, carousels or interactive polls can do wonders and keep the creative juices flowing…just have some fun with it!

Need some inspiration for your social media marketing? To get a complimentary audit of your current social strategy, get in touch at [email protected].

In Other News: What will the future Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest look like?

September 15, 2021 Rachel Fox Business, In other news, Industry, Insights, Social Media

Welcome back to another weekly round-up where you can catch up on what’s going on in the digital space! This week we’re sharing what our world of social media could look like going forward, featuring Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest.

Instagram’s new ‘Montage’ feature

It’s no secret that TikTok is killing it in the social space at the moment, taking the top place for most downloaded app for over a year now. According to Instagram, due to their reels continuing to grow in popularity, they are now keen to keep up momentum with users using reels to compete with TikTok, while also aligning with rising usage trends.

Their latest development comes in the form of a ‘Montage’ option which is currently being tested internally. This feature allows users to convert Instagram Stories frames into short Reels video clips which will all be automatically generated by the app. This will then be followed with the option to add suggested music, similar to TikTok.

Although there is no date for if and when this will be rolled out, this tool seems straightforward and a logical next step for Instagram to promote video content on their app, which currently generates the most engagement.

LinkedIn has hopped on board

Joining all of the other major social media platforms on the market right now, LinkedIn has finally launched ‘Dark Mode’ which allows users to choose from an alternate display option on both desktop and mobile.

Originally dark mode tools were released to limit exposure to blue light and to be easier on the eye for users when using devices in low light. Research has shown that “blue light can cause your brain to stop producing melatonin, which can then lead to disrupted sleep cycles, making it harder to fall asleep”.

As well as this LinkedIn hopes in ‘Dark Mode’ will allow it’s platform to become more inclusive and accessible to its users, helping reduce eye strain and keeping in mind light sensitivities.

Pinterest introduce ‘Watch Mode

Another platform following in the footsteps of TikTok is Pinterest. They are the newest app looking to release ‘Watch’ mode, which is a scrolling, vertical feed of content currently being tested for pin discovery.

Although this feature has not yet launched (currently there is no information on how many users can access this test), it seems you will be able to switch from ‘Browse’ mode which is what you currently know as the traditional Pinterest search field, to ‘Watch’ mode. Unlike TikTok, it seems you will be able to flick through both video and still image pins.

After releasing ‘Story Pins’ in September of last year, this next step of launching ‘Watch’ mode fits in well with the app’s progressive approach to development and we’re excited to see if this takes off in the near future!