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Tips on Tuesday

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We’re back on a very scorching Tuesday to take some of the heat off you in terms of your social media posts!

We strongly advocate having a social media schedule, we think its important, especially for a small business with a limited budget, to use marketing time wisely and to know what will be posted and when.

However, don’t be afraid of spontaneity and creativity.   If something is unfolding on social media don’t be afraid to participate, make use of it, tap into trending topics.

It is important to keep a sense of relevance to your own personal brand – but taking a chance here and there with your social media presence might just reap very good rewards.

 

Tips on Tuesday

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For today’s tip we’re concentrating on Twitter.

We think it is important for any small business to harness the power of local “hours” on Twitter.   These are regular hours each week where you can tweet the host account or tweet with the relevant hashtag included, and your tweet will be retweeted to (a) everyone following the host account and (b) to everyone following the appropriate hashtag. 

Local hours are a great way of getting your message across to a lot of people.  We also like the fact that the time slot is the same every week – which is vitally important when sorting your social media planning.

A word of warning though – make sure you do your bit.  These hours work on reciprocation, stick around for the full hour, retweet other businesses you find interesting.  You’ll find that you get far more interest from interaction and a symbiotic relationship rather than just a demand for a RT.  Have a search for your closest account, make a note of the next hour and get ready to tweet!

Some of the local hours you might find useful in the Aire Media region are: –

Monday

#IlkleyHour 7pm – 8pm

#OurYorkshire 8pm – 9pm

#HarrogateHour 8pm – 9pm

#BrandYorkshire 8pm – 9pm

 Tuesday

#eYorksHour 8pm – 9pm

#SkiptonHour 9pm – 10pm

 Wednesday

#YorkshireHour 8pm – 9pm

Thursday

#OtleyHour 7pm – 8pm

#BradfordHour 8pm – 9pm

#LeedsHour 8pm – 9pm

 Sunday

#KeighleyHour 8pm – 9pm

If you have an hour you use regularly or that you curate, please feel free to contact us and we’ll add to the list!

 

 

Tips on Tuesday

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We thought today’s tip was going to be a Facebook only tip.  But actually it can be applied throughout your social media platforms.

Today’s tip focusses on how often you can and should re-post the same content.  We understand how tempting it is, when you have something really good to say, to just keep re-posting.  But actually, spamming your potential customers can put them off rather than encourage them to engage.

Our tip is to change what you post even when posting the same message.  Change the language, use different pictures, dip into your content and summarise different excerpts.  Facebook especially will penalize your reach if you post the identical status over and over again.

We hope you found today’s tip helpful.  Let’s see those posts people!

Tips on Tuesday

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Today’s tip is in response to a question about composing the perfect tweet.

Pencileraserpic

An unknown author said “no-one is perfect……that’s why pencils have erasers”.  We couldn’t agree more, but we would also add “and why keyboards have the delete button”!

When you only have such a limited number of characters to be noticed, attention to detail counts.  Make sure punctuation, grammar and spelling are all correct.  Don’t be tempted to use text speak to shorten what you’re saying – it looks unprofessional and can be difficult to understand.  You want to engage potential customers, not give them reasons to avoid you.

A nice touch is to sign off with the initials of the person who is tweeting – especially if you have multiple users on the same Twitter account.  Customers like the personal touch.

There you go – today’s (most carefully checked ever!) Tip on Tuesday, we hope it is useful.

Tips on Tuesday

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Today’s tip is short and simple, but something that is frequently overlooked and can make such a difference.

We like it when businesses link to their social media profiles – as many as they have – from their website.   It shows your customers you are progressive and that you really are keen on keeping up with trends. 

Here’s where our tip comes in – make sure when people visiting your website (remember these are your potential customers) click on a link to your social media profiles, the link opens in a new tab or window.  You want people to stay on your website and give them MORE chances to read about you, not immediately direct them away somewhere else.  Getting people to visit your website is a really hard thing to achieve.  When you do this, you must keep them.

Tips on Tuesday

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Following a lovely little break for Easter, we’re back with our regular Tips on Tuesday slot.  This is a companion tip for our first ever Tip on Tuesday, which you can find here.

In our first tip, we talked about the importance of using your full quota of twitter characters.  Today we suggest you don’t allow your tweets to spill over the 140 characters.  Using multiple tweets for one point can get very confusing.  Don’t forget your followers will follow countless other people and their tweets will appear in and amongst yours.   It is far better to do a single punchy tweet, asking followers to follow a link to your website than trying to get across all the information in a limited platform. 

If you really cannot cut down your tweet, use a service like TwitLonger.  On TwitLonger you can type a far longer message, which will appear to your followers via your Twitter account. The first part of your tweet will be visible together with a URL to follow to read the full message at the TwitLonger website.

Remember, the key is not making your followers, who are your potential clients, work to find out what you’re saying or what you can offer.  Make it easy, make links clear to see and easy to follow and don’t make it impossible to follow your train of thought.

We hope you found today’s Tip on Tuesday useful!  See you same time next week!

Women on Wednesday

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To say we had spent a long time trying to think of a clever alliterative title to match our Tips on Tuesday slot would be an understatement.  Especially when we had overlooked the perfect “Women on Wednesday”.

Today was the very first meeting of the West Yorkshire Ladies Mean Business group – you can find us all on here.  A big thank you firstly to Rebecca and Emma for arranging the event and to Myrtle Perk in Bingley for accommodating us.

Today we met with several inspirational business women who for many reasons have changed their direction and their careers and started up their own businesses.  We really enjoyed the event – why not take a few moments to have a look and see who we met: –

Rebecca – who runs a Forever Living franchise.  Find out more about her and her story here. Rebecca is also the brains and power behing the West Yorkshire Ladies Mean Business group.

Julie – who decided enough was enough in her previous career – but then needed something to excite and fill up her time.  She is a Party Lite consultant – have a look at what she can offer.  Incidentally Julie offers the most innovative – and best smelling – business cards we have received to date, in a perfect little package with two lovely candles.

Sadie runs her own photography business, Peppermint Creative,  doing shoots from boudoir to babies, weddings to portraits and everything in between.  Have a look at some of her stunning photos.

Michelle had the wealth of experience we were all there to hear about having run a family business, Pink Pineapple, for over 20 years.  With products from greetings cards to bunting to homewares and gifts, there’s pretty much something for everyone at Pink Pineapple!

Nicola at Barking Mad , which we think is a fabulous and memorable name, who runs lovely home from home boarding for dogs.  What better way to relax on holiday than knowing your beloved pet is having a holiday too?!

Jan was representing Liberties & Co, a local nail, hair and beauty salon which she runs with her daughter.  Having heard about the wealth of treatments they offer, and the beautiful premises they operate from, we will be booking a treatment or two soon.  Why not see what they offer?

Melissa – runs a fabulous shop called Little Annie-Bets making stunning and unique accessories.  And there’s glitter.  Lots and lots of glitter.

Samantha has just started her own cupcake business and makes delightful and delicious looking treats which you can see here In a twist we really like, Samantha also runs Cupcake Cottage which does baking lessons for small groups.

Emma runs her own virtual assistant business.  As she rightly said, all her clients come to her via word of mouth, but we understand she will have a website up and running very soon.  If anyone would be interested in talking to Emma, please do let us know and we will put you in touch with her.

As you can see, we have a wealth of very talented ladies in such a small locality.  All I can say is that it seems like West Yorkshire ladies really do mean business!

Tips on Tuesday

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After a few more specific tips, this week we’re concentrating on something that can apply to each and every social media platform you use.

Simply, our Tip on Tuesday this week is respond and engage.  Getting people to like, follow, share and comment is one of the biggest challenges you will face in social media marketing.  Once you have the holy grail of a comment, or a like, or a mention, or a message, my tip is RESPOND.  It doesn’t need to be immediately but it helps to keep your fans and potential customers engaged to know they’re speaking to “someone”.  They may not know your name, but if you’re engaging in personal conversation in response to their actions, you are putting that personal touch in that will, in time, increase your reach and gain customers.

Do you find our Tips on Tuesday section useful?  Let us know if there’s anything in particular you’d like us to cover!

Tips on Tuesday

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Doesn’t time fly – for today’s tip we’re focussing on using Facebook for marketing

Facebook now has the option to pin a post at the top of your Page’s timeline for a week. 

USE this tool – place any special offers, promotions, any important announcements at the top of your page and pin them there.  Anyone visiting your site will immediately see the important information you want them to see. 

If you have a special offer you want people to see it and engage, people do not have the time to scroll down through countless other posts until they see something that catches their eye.

Any new status you write will appear below the pinned post until the time period has elapsed or you choose to unpin it.  The formerly pinned status will them simply drop into its chronological position in your time line.

Happy pinning!

Tips on Tuesday

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Doesn’t time fly?  Here we are on a Tuesday again and here’s our tip for today.

Again this is a generic tip – and one that could apply to all marketing, not just social media – and can be summed up in three simple words. Create. A. Brand.

It is so important when understanding your clients that you understand how fleeting your appearance on social media is.  You want to be instantly recognisable across every channel you inhabit.  The simple way to do this is make sure you have a catchy logo and make sure your logos match.  It really is that straightforward.  And means someone using Twitter will recognise you from Pinterest, will recognise you from Facebook.   Be the same.  Make your niche YOURS.