Tag: home business. online marketing

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Six Instagram Story Hacks to Use for Business

Just about everything you do on this platform relies on your use and understanding of the benefits and power stories provide. However, due to Instagram’s popularity, it can be hard to stand out against the competition to make a real impact and keep your audience interested and engaged.

 

Here are six Instagram story hacks to use for your business to provide your target audience maximum value and turn them into repeat visitors and customers:

 

Utilize and understand All Editing Features

 

Take the time to get to know how to use every single editing or other features Instagram has to offer. Instagram wants to keep people on their platform and provide you the tools to keep your customers there through these features. So the more time you take to learn it, the better you can take advantage of their benefits.

 

Create Progression Posts

 

Again, a goal for Instagram and you are to keep people active and engaged. If you want your viewers to stay around, create stories with slides or frames that work together to tell a full story instead of using single posts. In order words, don’t just share one story with a short frame of your product. Include extra details such as how to use it too.

 

Host Live Q&As or Other Events

 

Get your audience involved even more by answering their questions or showing off your products live. Q & As offers a fabulous way to build your community and advance brand awareness while answering many of your viewers’ or customers’ questions.

 

Take Advantage of Instagram Highlights and Shopping Feature

 

These two features are must-haves to get the most benefits from this platform. This is how you can make your stories last longer than twenty-four hours so your viewers can continue to receive the value if they were not there while it was live. It also provides you tools to add your brand colors to increase your brand awareness.

 

Mention Other Accounts

 

Account shoutouts are a professional way to increase your exposure and build the community with your niche or industry. The best trait to have as a business owner is generosity. The more you give and share to others, the more likely you are to receive more back. Additionally, when you post a shoutout, their audience will see your content, while your audience will likely view their content—a win for both businesses.

Use Tools and Pre-Schedule Your Content

 

Tools are important in order to keep up with the constant action required on Instagram. Of course, the amount you post depends on your target audience’s schedule, your niche, and what kind you want to create for your stories. However, the fact is still clear that frequently posting throughout the day is key to staying at the top of the newsfeed and better grab your audience’s attention.

 

As you can see, taking advantage of each and every feature the platform has to offer is the key to creating engaging and interesting content. The more features and tools you use, the more value it provides, keeping you at the top of your audience’s mind and preventing your competition from taking the lead. Add each of these ideas to your social media content plan to add the variety, consistency, and engagement you need to be successful.

 

Four Fun Ways to Use Instagram Stories Polls and Questions

 

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Common Social Media Story Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

The best way to know how to use a certain feature correctly is to learn what not to do first. This is done by understanding some of the most common mistakes many do when first using social media stories to market and advertise their business. While social media stories and the other features it provides can offer your business many benefits, learn how it works so your efforts will not be wasted.

 

Here are four of the most common social media story mistakes and what to do to avoid them:

 

Inconsistent Schedule and Posting Time

 

Social media is attractive due to the high amounts of communication and its movement and speed at which that communication can be found and digested. However, it is constant and never-ending — making it almost addicting as humans love to socialize. This means you need to find a schedule that keeps you consistent and always engaged. Of course, this will be different depending on the platform you use, but most stories only last for around twenty-four hours, which means at least once a day is vital at minimum.

 

Ignoring Audience Interaction and Engagement

 

Stories are about engagement and audience interaction. Don’t use this feature to post the same content you do everywhere else and ignore your audience. Get them involved, ask them questions, get their feedback, and always provide maximum value in exchange for their time.

 

Cross Promoting or Over Prompting

 

Repurposing is a great idea, but not for your stories. You always want to be more creative and transform the idea into something better and different to keep your audience attached or interested. Posting the same boring content on all platforms will likely disinterest them, making them head over to your competition as you no longer provide any value.

 

Poor Branding and Overall Message

 

Always plan your content to ensure your goals and company values are clear and obvious. If you don’t take the time to plan, you may inadvertently send the wrong message. Take advantage of the features, such as changing your font and colors to match your branding and using the Highlights section offered by Facebook and Instagram. A consistent message and branding statistically translate into more revenue for businesses. This is because your communication is clear, making it easier for you to create products or content your target audience needs and enjoys.

 

Don’t be caught making these same social media story mistakes. Start your social media story content plan off right by avoiding these common mistakes and taking advantage of the tips provided above. Being aware of these common mistakes gives you the tools you need to be one step ahead of your competition and offer better value and high-quality content to your target audience.

 

 

 

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Four Tips to Optimizing your Google Web Stories

To increase your blog traffic or beat out your competition, you need to add Google web stories to your content marketing plan. These stories are the new way to attract mobile users on the Google Discovery page or utilize the Google search engine.

 

When you search a keyword through Google’s search engine, a carousel appears below the search with stories from different blogs or websites. To view, simply click and tap to view each page of the story. As you can clearly see, these stories give you another opportunity to make it to the top of the Google search results page.

 

4 tips to optimize your Google Web stories for max conversions:

 

Include High-Quality Videos and Images

 

Keep your video size under 4MB, no larger than 720 pixels, and ten seconds in length. Images used should be 900 pixels by 1200 pixels. Fill in the alt text of your images, and don’t use GIFs.

 

Create a Solid Narrative, Theme, and Fill in SEO

 

Never cut off the viewer or expect them to finish the content on another page. Create a full story that educates and inspires them to continue instead. Be sure to keep the length of each of your stories between five and thirty pages. Add a title to your story but limit the text to forty characters. Each page you make should have a max of two hundred characters or less but keep in mind that they only last fifteen seconds. The more text you have in one frame, the more distracting it can be.

 

Test Your Stories Using the Google Web Stories Test Tool

 

By adding your story’s link to this tool, you can be sure you filled in all the required information to create a valid web story. Missing information such as your cover image and publisher logo will prevent your story from being recommended or shared by Google. Using this quick and easy tool ensures the work you put into creating Web Stories is worth it.

 

Don’t Share Content That Isn’t Yours

 

A final tip to note is only to post content you created to your stories. Google will not share content that is not by the publisher; you, which means if you want to share other people’s content, use Instagram, Facebook, or Snapchat instead or ask your audience to submit new content directly to you. This way, you can have full ownership of the content you share on your blog and with Google Web Stories.

Optimizing your Google web stories is vital if you want to get the most benefits out of this new feature. These stories provide a more attractive, creative, and immersive way to market and advertise your products, services, or content to your target audience while increasing your traffic and potential revenue.

 

 

 

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Five Tips to Creating Your First Google Web Story

Before you publish your first Google web story, it is essential you understand the basics first. Google requires certain information and criteria to produce quality content worth sharing with its audience on its Discovery page or the Google search engine results page.

 

Google web stories offer your blog or website a new way to generate more traffic and revenue through a creative, powerful, and immersive storytelling format. They are much different from regular social media stories. You are the owner of all the content and the host – giving you more control, ownership, customization, and ways to increase your revenue than other platforms with the story feature.

 

Here are five tips to keep in mind when creating your first Google web story:

 

Think 10 to 15 Second Hooks

 

Each Web story slide lasts about ten to fifteen seconds, depending on how you set it. Meaning that the information you share in each frame, even if you create a full thirty pages, should be easily and quickly digested. It is unlikely many will go back too many times to re-read stories as it can be tedious. Of course, that should never be your goal when creating stories in the first place. The point of stories is to make it even easier for your target audience to take in your information.

 

Animate and Choose a Theme

 

Stories are more entertaining and easier to digest when they have a consistent theme and proper animations. Animations keep your viewers interested, and themes keep your brand image clear and focused.

 

Keep Titles and Story Lengths Short

 

Google stories that are between five and thirty frames perform the best. However, it highly depends on your niche and the type of content you create. Title lengths should be around ten characters long but no more than forty.

 

Include an Attractive and Compelling Cover Image

 

Before creating a valid google web story, you must add in your cover image and publisher logo. Be sure your cover image is highly attractive and makes your viewers want to click. Your cover image is no different than the image that appears before your blog post link or YouTube thumbnail. However, the more compelling it is, the more likely someone will click on it. Use images with a good resolution of 900 pixels by 1200 pixels.

Include Relevant Links

 

Always include a relevant link to your story. In fact, this needs to be done in order to create a valid web story. Again, the main function of Google web stories is to increase your website traffic. If there is no link, it’ll be hard for your viewers to reach you. They will be more likely to click off.

 

To maximize your reach and potential with Google web stories, following these tips is a must. These tips, along with the checklist the plugin provides, are required to properly communicate and build an effective story that converts to more revenue or increased traffic.

 

 

 

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Important Instagram and Facebook Story Differences to Know

While Instagram and Facebook offer similar features, it is important to highlight the differences to pick the right one or use them efficiently to market to your target audience. Choosing the perfect platform is only as successful as your knowledge and understanding of using it or creating highly engaging story content. The story features offered on each platform are slightly different and can provide many different outcomes depending on your niche and goal as a business.

 

Here are the important differences to know between Instagram and Facebook stories:

 

Slightly Different Interface and Feature Options

 

Instagram is often slightly easier to use, but there are not many differences beyond the layout and art style. The main difference includes the amount of picture and video filters Instagram offers compared to Facebook. Instagram also allows you to go live, and it still appears within your stories section, unlike Facebook, where it will appear in the newsfeed. However, the benefit to Facebook posting the live to the newsfeed means it will last forever, but at that point, it is no longer a story, and you would need to create a new story to promote the video.

 

Age and Amount of Active Users

 

Instagram is for a younger audience, while Facebook is slightly older. The age range for Instagram includes those between eighteen and thirty-four, and Facebook consists of those between twenty-five and forty-four. Facebook’s audience is larger and more diverse because they created the option to make a business page and many different groups related to your niche or industry. Unlike Instagram, you only have one profile and a highlights section that heavily relies on hashtags to gain more views and exposure.

 

Group and Community Building Priorities

 

Facebook is better at this, and using stories allows you to beat the timeline algorithm by keeping you near the top of your follower’s news feed. In addition, Facebook group stories inspire user-generated content and get your target audience more involved and engaged.

 

Return on Investment

 

Facebook has the best return on investment for any social media platform due to its ads and the high number of users. While Instagram has the same ads, they don’t have the same daily active users or diversity.

 

Don’t waste time any longer struggling to pick between Instagram and Facebook. As you can see, each of them provides its own benefits. If you have the time, using both is a great strategy; however, adopting either will still bring you success as long you use them correctly. Take the time to test both and be sure you know where your target audience lives the most to make the best and most optimal decision.

 

What You Need to Know About Instagram Stories Highlights

 

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Five Ways to Customize Your Facebook Stories

It is said that Facebook reaches more than half of the world’s social networking population. It is also the second most downloaded smartphone application in the world. Two facts that should show you why Facebook is still an important tool to utilize and understand fully.

 

Each day nearly three hundred million people and businesses, just like you, post to their Facebook stories. While still not as popular as Instagram stories, it is still a beneficial tool to understand as Facebook continues to be a leading social media platform worldwide.

 

The following are five ways to customize your Facebook stories to increase your brand awareness:

 

Use Text Creatively

 

Adjust the size and use more than one font style. Fix the position, add captions, add a background color. Consider learning more about graphic design so that your thumbnails look captivating or use templates you can find on Canva and other websites.

 

Add Motion

 

With your camera, text, or other stickers and graphics, guide your viewers’ eye to the parts of the content you want them to view and act on the most. For example, if you want them to take action, visual motion cues to guide them toward the right buttons will help.

Four Benefits to Using Snapchat Stories to Market your Business

Have Fun with Filters and other Effects

 

People are sometimes critical of filters and effects when you’re trying to make someone look different than they really look, but the truth is, these filters and effects are fun and grab attention. So use them as much as you want or as little as you want but have fun.

 

Selfie Filters and Picture Filters

 

Try out the various selfie and picture filters that you can use to make your stories stand out. Facebook offers multiple filters. Currently, it’s the magic wand on the bottom left when you’re in the app. The filters show up at the bottom of the screen. Try out some fun filters on holidays or other special days to make your content stand out.

 

Try Out Boomerang

 

This app gives a looping effect to your stories and images. It blurs the background and brings faces into focus with an extra glow. They’re kind of like animated GIFS but play your video forward and backward. It can grab attention for different stories that you share.

 

Ask Your Audience to Join In

 

User-generated content, questions, and polls, anything that gets your audience involved is highly powerful content. But, if you want engagement or action from your audience, remember that you have to tell them what to do, tell them what’s in it for them, and then tell them what to do again.

 

Be sure to follow these tips when creating your Facebook stories if you want to keep your audience engaged and fully interested in your business or services. Creating consistent, engaging, and valuable Facebook stories is vital if you’re keeping your audience interested and active on the platform, growing your authority and brand awareness within the industry, and generating more sustainable leads.

 

 

 

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Four Top Benefits to Using YouTube and YouTube Stories

Getting noticed against the massive online competition can make any small business feel overwhelmed and inadequate. However, a tool can make it easier to get noticed and be seen as an authority within your niche or industry. This can be done by creating and starting a well-run and quality YouTube channel. Eventually, once you gain ten thousand subscribers, you can unlock the story feature to better market to your target audience and reach even more followers or subscribers.

 

Here are more benefits to using YouTube and their stories feature for business:

 

To Get a Chance to Market to Nearly One Billion Monthly Users

 

Using YouTube gives you a low-cost and sometimes free way to reach a global audience depending on the tools or resources you need to create a high-quality and valuable video.

 

To Rank Higher on Googles Search Engine Results Page

 

The main power of YouTube relies on the fact that it is a search engine. The second-largest just behind Google. Even better is that Google owns YouTube, meaning your long-form content video will rank well when people search from Google. It is essentially the same engine. Did you know nearly ninety percent of clicks made after a Google search are from the first ten organic results? So reaching the first page and near the top is an important goal when creating your videos.

 

To Grow Your List and Traffic to Your Website

 

Stories are essential to YouTube as they help you further engage your audience and hopefully convert them to loyal and paying customers. To accomplish this, use the feature for advertising and growing your email list. In turn, this will also increase your website traffic and potentially increase your revenue.

 

To Increase Engagement and Make a More Obvious Impact

 

Furthermore, once you reach ten thousand subscribers, you will want to use the stories feature to enhance further your engagement and exposure against your current audience and subscribers. Just because they subscribed or followed your link to sign up for your newsletter or email campaign does not mean you should rely on it to keep their attention. Stories appear on YouTube’s platform, giving you another way to keep their attention and further away from your competition. The more valuable and useful you make the story, the more likely they are to share it to grow your subscribers list too.

 

Sixty-two percent of businesses took advantage of these benefits in 2019. The fact is, the more your YouTube channel grows, the more successful your business becomes. Add to the growth and success of your business by adding a YouTube channel to your business marketing plan today. The more value you show your target audience, the more chance you have at success.

 

 

 

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How to Use YouTube Stories for Business

Every single day nearly one billion hours of content is viewed on YouTube daily. With around thirty million visitors every day, there is no reason you shouldn’t be taking advantage of this platform if you run or want to own a business. YouTube and its story feature are powerful avenues to better market your products, services, values, and ideas to your target audience. It also provides you a chance to create powerful and beneficial content in order to build a community that benefits your brand. YouTube stories are short clips only viewable from a smartphone and available to your audience for seven days.

 

The following is how to use YouTube stories for your business:

 

First Understand the Requirements

 

You must have 10,000 subscribers first in order to unlock the story feature. While this can be a downside to many business owners, you need to remember that YouTube is a great marketing tool. Additionally, note that you will not have this feature if you set your audience to kids.

 

Find the Plus Icon on Your Smart Phone and Select “Add to your story.”

 

The plus icon is located near the bottom center of your screen when you open the YouTube smartphone application. After you select the plus sign, you then need to select “add to your story.” If you do not see this as an option, your channel has yet to reach the requirements or needs to wait seven more days for the feature to appear.

 

Record a Video or Snap a Photo and Enhance

 

Tap or hold down the red record button, then save, trim, add text, stickers, or polls that enhance your content and make it more engaging. There are three more important stickers to include: video stickers to help promote a video, mention stickers to mention other YouTubers, and location stickers to reach your audience in a certain location.

 

Share and Reply to Comments in a Story for Extra Engagement

 

Finally, you can share the post once you believe the quality is right for your audience. Be sure to stay engaged with your audience. Don’t just post a story and then forget about them. If they are interacting, reply or post new stories to keep it up. The more value and engagement you bring to YouTube, the more successful your business will be.

 

Be sure to reply to comments to increase your engagement. You can do this by going to your profile and selecting comments. Then below the comment, you would like to reply select “reply in story.” Finally, record or upload your reply and choose post to share.

How do YouTubers Make Money? 

Just like other platforms, the YouTube Story feature is straightforward and easy to use. Once you post your story, they are viewable from your channel for all your subscribers to see and last for a full seven days. The more you can connect to your target audience, the more you can grow and increase your success on the platform.

 

 

 

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Four Fun Ways to Use Instagram Stories Polls and Questions

Social media stories are attractive because they are highly interactive and engaging for you and your target audience. One popular way to increase your engagement while learning more about your audience is using Instagram story poll stickers and questions. Adding polls, stickers, or emojis is an easy and simple process that keeps your audience interested and curious about your business. In addition, polls and questions provide you an opportunity to educate your audience and learn more about them.

 

To add a sticker or emoji, select the “Polls” icon after taking a picture or recording a video for your story. Next, type the question you would like to ask in the field that appears above “Yes” and “No.” After you input the question, you can even choose your different responses by simply tapping the “Yes” or “No” field to change it. The response fields can only be twenty-two characters long. However, there is no text limit for the question filed. Select “Done” in the top right of the screen to finish the poll.

 

The following are four ways to use Instagram Stories polls and questions:

 

Put Your Best Products Up for Battle

 

Compare your best products and have your audience pick the winner. Be sure to share the results of the polls so your audience can see how they relate to others who follow your business. It will also persuade them to participate more. For example, if you are a food blogger, you can share a story with one cake recipe you made on the top with another of your recipes on the bottom, such as chocolate versus caramel, and see which your viewers pick the most.

 

Develop a Creative Survey or Quizzes

 

Get to know your viewers more by asking them different questions related to your business or industry. Think outside of the box to know their most common problems and the goals they would like to achieve in life. You can even make fun quizzes that test their knowledge on the topic you would like to teach them or spread awareness. This is done by using the “Quiz” icon near the “Polls” icon when you swipe up from your story.

 

Test Your Audience Knowledge with Feedback Questions

Tools and Tips to Help You Automate Engagement

Ask your audience a series of questions to see if you understand their main problem. Not only does this create more engagement with your target audience. It also ensures you know what you can do for them and that you are providing value. Successful business solves problems, and asking them a direct question allows you to be sure you know what it is. Yes or no stickers or the sliding hand sticker where you use text to offer different answers is a great way to further learn about your audience and get them to interact with your stories.

 

Overall, using the Instagram polls, questions stickers, and slider features is a powerful way to understand and get to know your audience fully. It is not only fun for your audience to participate but gives you valuable information to perfect your craft, product, and services.

 

 

 

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Five Steps to Posting your First Instagram Story

By far, the number one platform to take advantage of for social media stories is Instagram. However, while Snapchat was the first, that does not make them the best. Instagram has nearly double the number of active users compared to Snapchat – making it not even a close comparison.

 

Almost eighty-seven percent of its nearly billion monthly active users post stories. Even better, a quarter of millennials and generation Z who use the platform say they use stories to find and purchase new products. So if you are a business not taking advantage of Instagram Stories, you should get right on it.

 

Here are five steps to posting your first Instagram story:

 

Step One: Plan Your Content

 

Always have a plan before you upload or record a story. You want to be sure everything you share is not only valuable but entertaining and engaging. The more you plan it out, the more likely you will have well-rounded stories to share sustainably.

 

Step Two: How to Upload or Record a Story

 

Find the plus icon from the Instagram application. The plus icon is currently located on the top right of your profile.  You can also create a story by selecting the plus icon below your profile picture where it says “Your Story” when you open the app or swipe with one finger all the way to the left for the camera to open. Then from the bottom, select “Story.”

Step Three: Upload or Record Your Content

 

Now you can either upload your previously recorded story, take a picture, record a video or go live. Select or hold down the white circle in the middle to take a picture or record your video. Select the box in the bottom left field to upload content and choose the content you would like to upload from the new window selections. Select the filters from the button next to the record or capture button to edit your content.

 

Step Four: Personalize and Enhance Your Story

 

After taking a picture or recording your story, you can enhance it with stickers, emojis, text, and music. Tap the center of the picture or video to add text, change the font style, size, and color or add motion. Select “Done” from the top right of the screen when you are finished with the text. Then you have an option to add a link, save the story, add stickers, and do other things you can do via the menu located in the top right of the story.

 

Step Five: Tap Publish and Watch Your Metrics

 

Select ” Send to ” from the bottom right corner. Then, select ” Send to ” from the bottom right corner. Next, select ” Send to ” from the bottom right corner – once you add in features that increase understanding and engagement, select “Send to” from the bottom right corner. Then select “Share” next to “Your Story” and profile picture. From here, you can even choose to share it with others.

 

Don’t neglect your Instagram stories any longer with these five easy steps. Instagram stories are a valuable resource to better market and increase your sales or engagement among your target audience. In addition, stories allow you to make your products, services, or business more interesting, personable, and trustworthy.