But everyone else? Some 60-70% of consumers would prefer to watch videos from the businesses they work with. And video engagement is rising across all of the social media platforms at a dramatic rate, much more quickly, in fact, than images displaced text in the early days of social media.

I mean, the iPhone has only had video capabilities since 2009. (Nokia released a video capable camera phone in 2007, but was eclipsed by the original iPhone launch.) Instagram and Snapchat are both less than 10 years old, and Insta didn’t have video sharing options until 2013. So in terms of human or even computer history, the acceleration is quite remarkable.

And Cisco predicts that 82-percent of consumer internet traffic will be video by 2020.

The New 4-Quadrant Approach

In case you’ve missed our last couple of Instagram-centered articles (you can check them out here), you may not be aware that Instagram is growing at a lightning pace. It boasts more than 1-billion active monthly users; 500-million of whom use it daily. It appeals to a demographic sweet spot for many businesses, adults 18-29. And it racks up even higher engagement under 18. And unlike Facebook’s dwindling business returns, 80% of Instagram users actively follow at least one business.

The key, of course, is actively following. While Facebook grows older and businesses yield more and more virtual real estate to Facebook Stories and Groups, if you can effectively engage your customers on Instagram, there’s a great chance they’ll stick with you for life. Studies show at least 30% of Instagram users have purchased a product they first discovered on Instagram.

There are four basic ways that people use videos to interact on Instagram, and they’re all available for small business use as well.

Videos as Part of Your Instagram Feed

This is the original video posting that Instagram launched in 2013. They’re pretty straightforward, and because they’re the old guard of the Instagram brand, they can be in just about any format – square, vertical or horizontal.

Even though some of these are ancient, by Instagram terms, they’re still engaging people and they’re grandfathered in, so you don’t need to go back and re-shoot or re-edit these videos to have them work.

I would suggest that you go back in and see which ones have the most comments and likes, and either respond to some comments that you may have missed, or add a comment. Because of the way the Instagram algorithm operates, doing this will bump the videos back to the top of your company feed. That allows some of your newer clients who may not have seen them to engage. This is especially effective for inspirational or motivational videos.

The stats:

• 3-60 seconds in length
• Minimum 1.91:1, maximum 4:5 aspect ratio
• 1080 x 608 or 1080 x 1350 pixels

Instagram Video Stories

Similar to the now ubiquitous Facebook stories, Instagram stories launched in 2016 as a way to compete with Snapchat stories, preferably without puppy dog ears and giant glasses. Or am I the only one creeped out by those filtered shots?

Because they’re designed to be short, Instagram stories work best for personal stories. A glimpse of the office; maybe someone’s birthday party; even a weekend gathering or team building trust exercise. Of course, just like Facebook stories, you can share a long series of 15 second videos strung together. But that kind of defeats the purpose of the shorter videos and can annoy some users.

And just like on Facebook, these stories disappear after 24 hours.

The stats:

• 15 seconds apiece, may be consecutive
• Always vertical, 9:16 aspect ratio
• 1080 x 1920 pixels

Live Instagram Videos

Spontaneous, raw, unedited fun makes these videos unique – and effective. Live Videos appear as part of Instagram Stories, at the top of the feed – but Live Videos trump the rest and immediately post to the front of the line, with a clear “LIVE” tag to set them apart.

Although spontaneity is part of the whole “Insta” brand, there are advantages to consistency as well. If you know when your users are generally on the site, you can schedule a Live Broadcast of just about anything for them to see. And once they find the value of your live videos, they’ll show up for them on a regular schedule.

Some businesses live stream corporate events, entertaining meeting presentations, even trips to places like Word Camp seminars, networking brunches and more. Each Live video can run up to 60 minutes. How and how much of that time you use is up to you, but make sure it’s valuable to your customers that will “tune in,” or you might as well be cancelled.

Of course, even after your live broadcast has ended, the recorded video lives for 24 hours, but the more you can engage and interest your watchers during the live broadcast, the better off you’ll be.

The stats:

• Up to 60 minutes long
• Vertical, with an aspect ratio of 9:16
• 1080 x 1920 pixels

IGTV

Now here’s where things get really interesting. IGTV was designed to compete with Netflix, YouTube, and, when it arrives, Quibi. It even got its own IGTV app, although you can still post to it through the standard Instagram platform.

IGTV is set up so you can build a channel, connect with a niche audience, and even offer exclusive content. It’s also designed to work only vertically, instead of forcing viewers to attempt to “Go 90” to get the best experience.

The videos can run up to 10 minutes long – unless you’re verified, in which case the top end moves to 60 minutes. But IGTV is the best place to truly implement a specific strategy to connect with your customer base.

In addition to all the fun, lifestyle and behind the scenes corporate stuff you can share in the other forms of Instagram videos, you can also upload expert interviews, tell stories about your brand, share exclusive tutorials or walk-through’s. You can educate viewers about your product’s features, uses, as well as doing specific Ask Me Anythings (AMA’s), and going beyond the usual approach.

Extra Engagement Tip 1: Respond to your users comments on a regular basis. Doing so builds trust and rapport.

Did I mention the channel aspects? You no longer need to be an advertisement interrupting your customer’s entertainment or educational opportunities. Now you can create them for yourself – and nobody minds that it’s shot on your cell phone.

IGTV also allows you to curate and feature other relevant companies and products, user and influencer reviews, tutorials, and demonstrations. Nothing builds trust like word of mouth, and the right “mouths” on Instagram can reach millions of ears and eyes.

And building a Community is the number one thing small business marketing needs to focus on this year.

The stats:

• 15 seconds to 10 minutes long
• Verified or high-value (lots of followers) brands can be approved for up to 60 minutes
• Vertical, 9:16 aspect ratio
• 1080 x 1920 pixels

Extra Engagement Tip 2: Every week, take a few moments to review your most popular Instagram posts. Then add a comment or respond to a user comment. This pops the post back to the top of your feed and continues the cycle of engagement.

Using videos on Instagram is a fantastic way to continue to build your business’ social media presence and engagement. While I still prefer to read the step-by-step instructions on a task, I am aware that millions of others would rather watch someone following the steps in a video. And I create those videos on a regular basis for Grow the Dream and many of our clients.

Of course, all the old guidelines still apply. You want to be consistent with your brand, know who your ideal customers are, and what they are looking for. In fact, the deeper you drill to find what your ideal customer wants and needs, the more effective your videos will be.

Don’t be left behind – make videos a priority in your marketing plan this year. And if you don’t have the time to do it yourself, please reach out. As I said, Grow the Dream creates and curates videos for several of our clients and we’d be happy to help your business succeed in this area as well.

That creates a quandary for those small businesses hoping to reach those younger eyes and ears with disposable income. Social Media Marketing is no longer an option or a simple enhancement to traditional marketing efforts, it’s a necessary evil.

At the same time, we’re still seeing that the majority of entrepreneurs and small business owners are Baby Boomers or Gen X-ers, who sometimes struggle with app-based social media — which is why the latest development from Facebook’s Creator Studio for Instagram is so exciting!

Yes, Facebook owns Instagram. And WhatsApp. And…

While the two companies were the priciest acquisitions that the social media giant made, they were mixed in with a dozen other purchases in 2012 & 2014, respectively.

In all, Facebook has snatched up employees, patents and assets from nearly 80 companies since 2008. That includes the court-mandated acquisition of ConnectU – the social media site Zuckerberg helped the Winklevoss twins build that was the basis for the move, The Social Network.

Just a little food for thought.

Living (on Social Media) In the Moment

The problem that most companies found with trying to conduct social media marketing on Instagram is right there in the app’s name – now the platform’s popular nickname – “Insta.” Instagram for years resisted efforts by various social media aggregators like HootSuite, Crowdfire, TINT, Flockler and Buffer.

Scheduling a post in advance was difficult at best – Instagram was constantly changing its interface, disconnecting from other platforms, and, long before everyone else started doing it, insisting on double and triple verification.

And it was worse for companies, like Grow The Dream, which offer their clients social media work done for them. Whoever was responsible for a client account had to use their smart phone to save logins not only for their own Insta, but the clients’ accounts, too. And when someone got booted, it could take anywhere from 10 minutes to a whole day to get reconnected. Especially if clients were in other time zones.

Dashing Through the Social Media

In late April, early May, Facebook business owners started seeing some announcements popping up on their Facebook Business Manager Dashboard. If they clicked over to the Facebook Creator Studio, they discovered that Instagram could now be linked to their Facebook business account.

That means they could see many of the same audience and engagement analytics for Instagram that they already had access to for Facebook posts. And shortly thereafter – Facebook rolled out the ability to publish Instagram posts from your desktop.

And in the fall, Facebook Creator Studio added the crucially needed ability to schedule Instagram posts.

Considering that Instagram posts that are forwarded on to a connected Facebook account generate 20-30% higher engagement than Facebook native posts, this is very good news. Before you jump into the fray, though, don’t neglect to study the differences between the two platforms’ typical audience.

Remember, your primary goal is to appeal to and attract your ideal target client – the center of your marketing bullseye. So make sure you’ve done the strategic work and know what your ideal customers need, the questions they’re asking, and where they’re looking to find answers.

First Steps – Connecting Instagram to Facebook Creator

1. Make sure you have an Instagram account and a Facebook Page.
2. Convert your Instagram account to a Business Profile or Creator Account
3. Connect your Instagram account to a Facebook Page you manage. The Facebook Page you link your Instagram account to can be published and public, or unpublished and invisible to the public.
4. Connect to Instagram in Creator Studio.
5. Click the Instagram logo to go to the Instagram section.

Post to Instagram Feed

To upload and post content to Instagram Feed from Creator Studio:

1. Click Create Post.
2. Click Instagram Feed.
3. If you have more than one Instagram account connected, select the account you want to post to.
4. Add a caption. You can use a max of 2,200 characters, 30 mentions and 30 hashtags – remember to include a link and a clear Call to Action! You can also add an optional location – especially important if your business is locally-oriented.
5. Click Add Content to choose the photos or videos you’d like to post. Then either:
   1. Click “From File Upload“ to upload new content.
   2. Click “From Facebook Page“ to post content that you’ve already shared on your Facebook.
6. To tag accounts in your photo:
   1. Select the person/tag icon on the bottom of your photo.
   2. Type the account name.
   3. Select Save.
7. To tag a business partner for a branded post:
   1. Select Advanced Settings.
   2. Type the name of the partner’s account in the Search for a business partner… field.
   3. Select the business partner.
8. If you want to simultaneously post this content to the Facebook Page connected to your Instagram account, check the box next to your Page under Post to Facebook.
9. Click the arrow next to Publish.
10. You can either Publish Immediately or Select Schedule.
11. Choose the date and time at which you want your content to post on your Instagram feed.
12. Click Schedule.

And that’s all there is to it.

One caveat – with the desktop Instagram publishing, certain features like Filters, Effects and Stickers are not available yet. You also can’t publish to Instagram Stories. So while it’s not a catch-all perfect solution for your social media integration, it’s a great first step to help marketers better utilize both platforms.

Edit: Update (1/9/2020) —

So, for whatever reason, Facebook has now disabled the ability to schedule a post for Instagram that cross-posts to Facebook. Here at Grow the Dream, we’re monitoring the situation and will update this post if the issue is resolved at a future date.

You might think it’s a social media network that builds audiences based on personal photos, and you wouldn’t be totally wrong. However, Instagram is becoming much more than the sum of its parts and can be a great place to build your brand awareness and audience – even if you’re not making or selling food, fashion, graphic design or travel packages (it’s even stronger for those)

First Things First

Before you dive into learning about Instagram – and trust me, it’s a bit of a learning curve – let’s consider if it fits the strategic plans you have for your business marketing.

By now, if you’ve read any of our posts on the Grow the Dream site, you know that the first thing you need to consider is your strategic work. This is true before we even start exploring Instagram and it will become more important if you decide that Instagram is a place to build your business.

Knowing who your ideal customer is, their specific demographics as well as the pain they feel and the questions they’re asking, is key to making any online marketing plan a success and that’s heightened when you’re building your community on Instagram – more on that in a moment.

31% percent of all women online use Instagram and 24% of men who go online use it as well. More than half of the Instagram user base is 18-29 years old. Teenagers in particular consider Instagram to be their most important social networking outlet, especially since it was bought by Facebook. And 80% of users follow at least one business, so if your product or service hits that sweet spot of 18-29 or younger, Instagram is probably something you should seriously consider.

But Is It Worth It?

Here’s where I’m going to veer off my usual, follow the strategic work plan. Because as valuable as building an Instagram community can be for a business, it takes a lot of work.

Instagram, more than just about any other social media network, is very hands-on. It requires a bit of attention, at the minimum, once a day. That can cut into your other marketing efforts. You only have so much time in a day – especially if you’re a solopreneur right now.

I’m not going to lie to you and tell you if you follow these 6 or 13 or even 89 steps, that you’ll quickly dominate Instagram. Anything worth doing well takes some time to get right. And if you have the time and hit the demographic, it can be extremely valuable to your business to build your community on Instagram.

So take a look at your strategic work, check out the rest of this article to get some idea on how much effort it will take, and decide if it fits your overall business strategy to invest in Instagram.

So What Does it Take?

Start with the basics. As I explained in an earlier post, you’ll want to have a name and icon that are consistent across all of the social media you use as well as within your website. On Instagram, the visual representation of your company is called the DP (display picture). Instagram recommends that it’s good and eye-catching.

If Instagram is not the first social media platform you’ve targeted, use the one you’ve established elsewhere, unless you realize that it’s not working perfectly. If that’s the case, use this as an opportunity to visually rebrand across your social media platforms, and even point it out, so the new logo becomes synonymous with your brand.

Incidentally, even if you stick with your current logo/image, post an announcement on your other social media profiles that you’ve launched on Instagram and would appreciate support there. That’s sure to garner you a few followers and likes right off the bat.

Just like on Twitter, you have minimal space for a bio, so make it count. Provide your soon to be community with a positive first impression in the 150 characters allowed. Mention your vision, your overall products and services and contact details.

You get one, and only one link on your Instagram profile. For starters, make that link your website. However, as you build your community, you can swap out that link for one that sends people to, say, a specific promo on your site. Then mention in your appropriate post captions that the link is in your bio.

Begin Building Your Community

Now, before you post anything, stop and take a look around. Take a look at your competitors’ pages and see what their engagement looks like. You don’t want to copy them, but you can learn from what they’re doing right and wrong.

While we often refer to following someone on Instagram, the platform itself defines things differently. On Instagram, you build a community made up of engaged fans who will act as brand advocates. In addition to liking and commenting on your photos, these people will engage in conversations. They might even @mention your brand and help build excitement. Their own community will see that post and may join yours as well.

With your strategic work in hand, search for 15-30 profiles that fit the criteria of your ideal customer. Look at their pages. Like and comment on a few of their photos – or at least one.  And be human – this is not the time to advertise or try to offer solutions. This is admiring the picture of their dog or fancy dinner – right now it’s about making a connection, not selling anything. Follow their account and it’s likely that they’ll follow back, at least initially.

Next, find and follow influencers in your industry, as well as past and current clients. Follow the same steps of commenting and liking – and it doesn’t have to be on their most popular posts. In fact, often times engaging the less popular posts will make you stand out, especially if you add something to the conversation.

Typically some of them will follow you back as well. And you might find yourself collaborating with influencers down the line, so it’s good to build rapport and relationships now.

Positioning Your Posts

Just like your content blog, if you want to build your Instagram community, you need to be posting consistently and every day. And, yes, I mean EVERY day. Tailwind recently did a comprehensive study of Instagram practices that found, among other things, profiles that posted at least once a day, or seven or more times a week, got more likes and gained more followers faster than those that posted less frequently.

Just by posting 5 days a week instead of once can double your community size. Adding those extra weekend posts doubles it again. Only 5% of Instagram accounts post at least once per day. This is how you stand out.

The more you post, the more likes and followers you will get, and the more they will engage with you.

Unlike some social media platforms, there is no set time that is perfect to post to Instagram. To get started, since you have to do the posting yourself – third party scheduling apps get booted out of Instagram all the time – it’s probably best to schedule yourself to do 2 posts a day – one when you first get to the office and one right before you leave.

As you build your community, you can look deeper into the statistics Instagram provides to see when your ideal customers are most active on Instagram, and you can begin to post within those windows.

Much like Facebook’s latest algorithms, the more engagement your post on Instagram has, the more people will see it organically. And if you unite the two platforms, BuzzSumo found that images posted on Instagram that get shared through the app to a Facebook feed have 23% higher engagement on both platforms.

Also, schedule a few minutes each day to respond to comments on your posts and continue building engagement and relationship through the conversation.

What’s In a Post?

Here’s where we get down to the nitty gritty of what a post looks like:

1. Visual Images

What you post on Instagram has a clear effect on how people see your company. So it is essential to make sure you’re posting quality, accessible images that offer a positive impression of what you offer your clients.

To do that, you’ll need strong photos – but not necessarily professionally staged ones. In fact, the more ‘casual’ or creative you can be with your images on Instagram, the better, as long as they enhance and connect with your brand.

Keep your images similar-looking in terms of color and composition. Make your feed a collection, or curated gallery of sorts, that works together to tell your brand story. In fact, since you can upload up to 10 photos or videos in one post, some businesses do just that – use visual language to tell a complete story in one post.

One big mistake that a lot of new businesses make is to immediately push the serious business with promotional, sales-driven posts. There’s almost nothing that will send your audience packing than making it clear to them you’re just there for one reason.

That isn’t to say you can’t do promotional posts or ones showing off your product or service. You just have to be more creative about it. If you’re selling a product, showcase it in an unusual way. I’ll talk more about influencers and customers/fans of your item in a moment, but it’s also something to consider. And if you do decide to take a more serious approach for a few posts, be sure to stagger them. Be sure to focus on the problem they solve or the pain they heal.

In addition to promotional posts, this is your opportunity to get personal with the Instagram audience – remember, you’re building a community. So show the people in your company, post about social events, charity contributions, the annual Christmas gala or Santa surprise. Show the creative side and culture of your business, highlight your vision, or the reasons you were inspired to start the business. Build relationships.

2. Filters

One great way to keep your images similar-looking and build a distinctive visual brand is by using the same filter on every image. In fact, 60 percent of the top brands on Instagram already do this. By using the same filters over and over, you can establish a style that will become recognizable to your community.

Since your goal is to stand out, maintaining a consistent visual pattern in your posts allows your community to instantly spot your posts as they’re scrolling through their feed, which leads to more engagement.

3. Captions

One of the fun things you can do with Instagram that stands out is using the captions feature. And for a small business, it’s a great way to throw in a “Call to Action”.

Remember, Instagram is about engagement. So you can use captions to have people to tag a friend, ask a question, or answer the question you’ve posed in the caption. Anything that gets them more closely tied to you.

You can also create contests and drive people back to your business platform. You can’t put links in captions, but, as I mentioned earlier, you can change the link in your bio to a specific landing page and mention in the caption “Link in the Bio.”

4. #Hashtags

Hashtags make your photos searchable, plain and simple. Tagging your photos with relevant keywords means that you will show up when someone searches for photos related to that keyword. You can also tag your photos with popular general hashtags to reach an even larger audience, but this is less productive.

You can add up to 30 Hashtags per post, but the ideal number is 9-11 per post. You can put them in the caption, but I’ve spotted some savvy business people that load the hashtags into the first comment. Not sure why it works, but it does all the same

Take advantage of your strategic work – if there is a phrase that connects to your brand, or a search string that you routinely land on the front page for, use it as a custom hashtag in all your posts – and in your bio. This also works great if you have a slogan or short vision statement for your business. Your community members will use the hashtags, and that will increase your Instagram presence.

You can also use Instagram search the same way you use Google for your strategic work – see what images come up when you search the hashtags you’re considering.

Also, if you’re a local business, use the appropriate location hashtag to make sure people can find you. We would use #Sarasota or #SRQ (airport code) most often. Even if your prospective clients aren’t all local, location tagging builds more engagement.

5. Videos

Video posts on Instagram are constantly evolving. Just a year ago, videos on Instagram could only be 4-11 seconds long. That made it challenging for some people to make the best use of them. If you have the means to do it, I’d recommend it. The average engagement for videos is growing faster than the average engagement for images, and some businesses focus their Instagram posts solely on videos. There’s too much to go into in the midst of this article (look for a follow-up post later this year), but just to give you an idea of the options now available:

• • • Instagram Feed Video: 3 seconds – 1 minute
    • Instagram Story Video: 15 seconds max per Story
    • IGTV Video: 15 seconds – 10 minutes
    • Instagram Live Video: Up to 60 minutes

6. Curate Customer Posts

The images you post on Instagram don’t have to be just your own. Take advantage of happy customers and encourage them to post on their personal Instagram with your branded hashtag. Just like getting positive feedback of your product and services on review sites, your customers become ambassadors for your product or service.

Unlike the review sites, you can pick and choose the best uses and images of your products and services and repost them on your Instagram page, crediting the original poster. There are also a few WordPress plug-ins you can add to your site to add an Instagram widget to your page.

7. Collaborate with influencers

Another great way to extend your Instagram reach and grow your following is to collaborate with others. You can develop partnerships, sponsorships, account take-overs or you can get influencers to post about or be a fan of your product or service.

Identify influencers on Instagram that your ideal clients like or are relevant to your brand or industry. You can build a relationship with them, getting to take advantage of their “reach” on the platform.

The easiest and cheapest way to do that is to get them as a fan. This doesn’t mean they endorse or even post about your business, but are willing to have pictures of them with your product, staged or otherwise, posted on your feed with their @profile tagged.

Going one step further and getting an endorsement, or having the influencer post about your product, can get expensive quickly, depending on the size of their reach. This writer worked with some of the Real Housewives and The Kardashians for a short time, and they charge between $15,000, all the way upwards to $1-million for their official stamp of approval.

8. Instagram Stories

One of the hottest new features of Instagram, that Facebook is also experimenting with on their site, is Instagram Stories. These are short-term slides that disappear after 24 hours of being live.

While this may seem counterintuitive at first, Instagram Stories has the added advantage of popping to the top of your community’s feed, cutting through the 80-million images per hour posted on the site.

And more than 250 million people use see Instagram Stories every day.

You’ll Need an Instagram-Specific Strategy

In addition to your regular marketing strategy, you’ll need to have a specific plan of action for your Instagram marketing as well.

Measurable Goals

Just as you do with all of your marketing, you should know what you hope to achieve with your Instagram postings. And, just like any strategic work, the goals need to be specific and measurable. Hopefully, you’ve already done some of the work in your initial strategic assessment. You just need to apply those business and marketing goals to how they can be achieved on Instagram.

Style guidelines

The key here is a consistent, visually appealing and instantly noticeable style and image as your branded content. Do you use emojis or not? Which #hashtags are always used? What is the visual style most of your posts should emulate? Do you add a key logo – also known as a brand bug – to each image so if they’re shared widely, they always lead back to you?

Content themes

This can vary, or run in cycles, but what is the central intent of the content you are posting? How does it tell your story best? Make sure everything reflects that, even if you’re running a contest or choosing which of your customers’ posts to redistribute.

Engagement guidelines

Again, Instagram is all about building communities and relationships. It’s fine when you’re a solopreneur, but once you start delegating responsibility, everyone who touches your Instagram profile needs to be on the same page. Are there certain posts or businesses we don’t like or comment on? Are there specific words and phrases that are always used? Do we engage with negative comments as well as positive ones? How much do we engage (More than a simple “Thank you!”)?

One of the disadvantages of Instagram that you should also consider is, as I mentioned earlier, that it is very difficult to automate (one of the top strategies we recommend for small business owners). There are several programs out there that claim to be able to automate your Instagram posting and engagement. However, more often than not, they backfire, knocking your Instagram engagement into the cellar. Either take the time to do it yourself, or just don’t bother.

But Then There’s This…

Ultimately, Instagram can actually enhance your strategic work. Yes, you read that right. The same collation of data that’s recently been the subject of congressional hearings and the like means that if you take the time, you can learn a LOT about your Instagram community as a whole.

Instagram Insights can show you which posts your followers like the most, and even which posts see the most engagement from people outside of your community. And you can get specific with time frames and other variables to help pinpoint what to focus on in Instagram, as well as adding that information into the profile of your ideal customer.

To get to Instagram Insights, tap on your profile photo in the app. Tap on the Instagram Insights (bar chart) icon, then scroll down to the “Posts” section and tap on “See more.” After you’ve perused your top posts sorted by impressions, select a post and tap on “View Insights.” You’ll find a wealth of information.

So is Instagram marketing worth it? You’ll have to decide for yourself. If you already have a strong visual component to your products or services, if your ideal customer is 18-29 or in their teens, and you have the time to invest, it’s a no-brainer. If you lack any of those components, you may want to carefully consider whether you have the time to spare to properly manage everything, or if your time would be better spent on other efforts.

Either way, to answer the question in our title, ‘Can Instagram help build your business?’ Yes, it definitely can, if it fits in your marketing strategy.

But one day, tragedy struck. While racing through the forest, the sea cow tripped over a hidden stump. She crashed into the leafy floor in desperate pain. Afraid to move her, the pig raced to find a doctor who could help. But when the doctor arrived, he told the sea cow that she would never walk or run again. Her legs weren’t just broken, they were shattered and useless.

Every day, the wild pig would sit with the sea cow and read to her, but every time he walked away, even for a moment, the sea cow would become despondent about her tiny shattered legs.

“Go away”, she would plead with the wild pig. “Leave me to die out here alone. I know you want to race and so do I, but it’s impossible. So just go.”

The wild pig tried to leave, but he missed his friend terribly. So he would walk all around the area, while he thought and thought. One day, he found himself at the beach, watching the tide come in and go out. Suddenly, he had an idea.

He raced as fast as he could back to the sea cow in the forest. She was so sad, it made him hurt, but she tried to smile as he came up to her.

“Hop on my back”, he said. She didn’t understand, and told him so, but he just kept insisting, “hop on my back.” Finally, the sea cow managed to climb up onto the wild pig’s back and he carefully jogged back to the beach.

The wild pig ran down close to the water, hunched down and flipped the sea cow off his back into the water. At first, the sea cow didn’t know what to do. But as the tide pulled her out into the ocean, she found she could wiggle her legs.

Race me, the wild pig shouted! He began jogging on the wet sand. The sea cow struggled, but found she could swim in the water. She squealed with delight and began catching up to the wild pig. That day, they raced 10 times before tiredness overtook them. Every day after that, the sea cow and the wild pig would race, side by side, one in the water and one on land. And we know the sea cow as the manatee to this day.

Once Upon A Time…

Stories have an interesting effect on our human minds. Despite our rational brains and our ability to make critical decisions with careful thought based on facts, all that can be thrown out the window by a good story.

In fact, researchers tell us that there are chemical changes in our brain that cause us to feel as if the story we are hearing – or better yet, seeing – is happening to ourselves. This is why some movies are more compelling than others. So when Adonis Johnson wins the boxing match at the end of Creed, it isn’t just him proving that he wasn’t a mistake – all of us feel that emotional impact.

As far as our brains are concerned,
seeing a story and imagining ourselves in the character’s
shoes is just as authentic as reality.

Now, I’m a pretty good storyteller so you could probably see a little bit of what was happening in your mind as you read the story of the sea cow and the wild pig. And you probably won’t forget it anytime soon. But imagine how much more meaningful and even memorable the story would be if you saw it animated.

In fact, adding visuals to your story has been proven to actually increase memory retention from 10-65%.

Are you familiar with the old car-salesman tactic where they ask you “now do you see yourself more in the blue car or the red car?” If you’ve studied sales at all, you know that it’s a way of selling the car by causing the customer to cast their minds into the future – as if they’ve already made that car purchase.

But it’s much more powerful than that.

By stimulating the visual cortex – the part of the brain that is responsible for seeing – generating a picture in our mind’s eye actually causes your mind to make a choice. To make an emotional choice that will then force your higher level brain to justify that choice … and suddenly you’ve bought a car without even giving a thought to safety features, price or reliability. Which is probably why you need to do that research first.

90% of the information sent to the brain is visual,
& visuals are processed 60K times faster than text.

Our brains store words in our short-term memory, which can handle about 7 to 9 bits of information at a time. But images go straight into the long-term memory, where they are etched into the folds of our gray matter forever. In fact, I could probably just mention certain visuals and you’d instantly know what movie or TV show I was talking about.

So you can probably guess how a tweet or a text-only Facebook post compares to the power of Pinterest or Instagram, especially in our oversaturated media world.

As of last year,

• 27,000,000 pieces of content are shared each day.
• The average human attention span has dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to only 8 seconds!
• We check our phones 150 times per day. We check our email 30 times an hour.
• The amount of information in the world continues to double every 18 months.

How do you stand out in the crowd? Visual Storytelling.

A Picture = 1000 Words

Visual Storytelling seems pretty simple – it’s the art of communicating a series of messages using visual multimedia. It can be in the form of graphics, images, pictures, infograms, and videos. But as we’ll see, there’s a popular misconception about using storytelling in business, visual or otherwise that you’ll need to be aware of.

First, let’s look at what your visuals should accomplish.

Every 60 seconds –

• 208,300 photos post to Facebook
• 510,000 photos get likes on Instagram
• 278,000 tweets are sent
• 100 hours of video upload to YouTube

That’s an awful lot to compete with. So how do you stand out?

Getty Images, no stranger to visual media, lists 4 primary principles of visual storytelling:

1. Be Authentic

With the rise in popularity of images and the Internet, audiences have become far more sophisticated in their ability to quickly spot fakes, advertisements/sponsored content and insincerity.

Meanwhile, authenticity builds a connection between a brand and a consumer. If you want to forge a real emotional connection between your small business and your prospective customer , a connection which you’ll need to transform them into a buyer or follower, you need to be authentic.

I already mentioned how visuals help reinforce memory and emotional connection to a story. Working backwards, adding text to visuals can work similarly. Scientists call this dual coding. In order to make authenticity even more important, your text and your visuals should complement each other.

Keep the text limited though – let the visual tell the story and the use words to just reinforce it.

2. Use Your Senses

If you want to build an even stronger emotional connection to your potential customers, you’ll need to use visuals that evoke a visceral feeling. The old Barnum maxim of ‘no bad press’ can become a temptation here, but be careful. If the visceral feeling you evoke is nausea or disgust, that’s not going to help your brand profile.

But if the story you’re telling is more adventurous or exploratory, using images that bring it not only to the customer’s mind, but deep down into their gut. Make them tingle – the right way – and you’re likely to make a sale.

The more senses a piece of visual content is able to engage, the more memorable it becomes. This is one of the reasons lifestyle photos are 170 times more engaging than product photos.

As I mentioned earlier, cognitive science calls reinforcing pictures with text dual coding.  It is the link of two compatible messages. Our brain’s ability to retain information significantly increases when visual information is paired with verbal information.

3. Create a Hero

There’s a reason that the original Star Wars movie was and still is so successful. While Lucas didn’t come up with the idea using psychology, he rewrote his master script using a Jungian series of archetypes that Joseph Campbell called ‘The Hero’s Journey.’

Telling your story through the use of character archetypes can help it immediately resonate with your audience. The hero, the rebel, the mentor – all of these have a memorable place and create an immediate connection in most people’s minds.

Reinforcing again that lifestyle photos – and those without faces, so the considerably more effective than other visuals.

4. Be Relevant!

This can be as easy as making sure your story has some seasonal changes that coincide with holidays, cultural events, and emerging trends.

More specifically, your visual content should match your existing brand story in other mediums, and should reflect things that are relevant to your target audience, the problems they have and how you can successfully solve those problems for the client.

Which brings me to the error that most businesses, regardless of their size, make when first attempting to add storytelling, and visual storytelling to their marketing repertoire.

Because it’s your small business, it’s easy to think of yourself or your company as the story that needs to be told to connect with your potential customers. But there’s some old novel-writing advice you can take to heart when developing your story. Everyone in a story, even the villain, thinks of themselves as the hero of the story. Sure, Indiana Jones might be the name in the title, but for his pal Sallah, Indy’s just an interruption to the grand tale of his life.

So when you’re developing the story of your business that you’ll tell to prospective clients – it’s not your story.

Make them the hero of your story.

Now that doesn’t mean that the fact that you lead your industry by providing minimum-risk pest control solutions shouldn’t be part of that story. But everything needs to be filtered through the lens of your strategic work. Do your ideal customers care about ‘going green’? Then it should absolutely be a part of your story.

Testimonials from your existing customers, sharing their positive feedback about your company are a great visual element you can employ. You can record them on video, sharing their story, or simply share a photo of them – maybe even using your product. If you want to really double down, get their permission to take screen shots of the video and you can post them as well, with limited text.

Some numbers to consider if I still haven’t convinced you:

• Posts with an album or photo drive up to 180% more engagement than those without.
• Viewers spend 100% more time on web pages with videos.
• Viewers are 85% more likely to purchase a product after watching a product video.

Back to the Beginning

So, once upon a time, there was a person who wanted to make an impact on his world. So they started a business, and made things and offered services that would improve the lives of the customers that they knew needed their help.

But it wasn’t enough. They knew there must be something more.

So they went on a virtual world wide tour. They visited far off lands with strange names like Pinterest and Facebook and Instagram and discovered they could help more people and make a bigger difference if only they could find more time.

Then, on the way back home, they stumbled into a dark cave. They were scared, but just kept going, following a small light up ahead. They emerged into a new, exciting realm called Infusionsoft that promised if they worked hard for a little while, they would be granted the elixir of time.

So they brought the magical knowledge back to their business, and even though it did take a lot of work at first, they helped more and more people, both as customers and employees. And after a while they did discover that they suddenly had more time and freedom to spend with their family and friends, and everyone’s life was better.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Of course, it was much harder back then to do the strategic work of gathering all of the available data on your targeted customer, considering the most popular site online was MySpace and Google’s AdWords was barely out of beta.

Today, however, it’s almost too easy to gather a huge wealth of information about almost everybody – as evidenced by the recent Congressional hearings. Then there’s the site PleaseRobMe.com that serves to warn average social media users that they probably share way too much.

While we value personal privacy and would never advocate illicit means of gathering data on your ideal customer, Facebook’s Audience Insights tool gives us an incredible birds-eye view of the people who are interested in a product or service – and it’s perfect for small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Look Before You Leap

There are two main ways to utilize the data you’ll discover in Facebook Audience Insights. Its central purpose, and the reason it was designed, is to use the information people provide, along with third-party data (like buying and banking trends) to make it easier to target your Facebook Ads, making them more valuable. The secondary purpose many marketers have grasped is that they can use that data to create Buyer Personas within Facebook that can be utilized to locate your ideal customer.

Bear in mind that Facebook Audience Insights is NOT a replacement for good old fashioned strategic work. You still need to do your due diligence. Target your ideal customer. Know what questions they’re asking. Know how you can help them/heal their pain and build a profile of your perfect buyer.

Once you have that done, though, Facebook Audience Insights allows you to turbo-charge that work – like a rocket booster, or like adding NOS to your classic muscle car, if you’re more of a Vin Diesel type.

Also, to spare your needing to read a really long, repetitive article, I’m not going to explain how to get to or open Facebook Audience Insights. If you’re already familiar with the platform, you’ll get bored. If you aren’t yet, there are hundreds of places online that explain it fully and succinctly, including Facebook business tools itself. Do you need to go look? It’s okay, I’ll wait. No, seriously.

Okay, got it? Good. Now let’s talk about the strategies to use within Facebook Audience Insights.

Use Who You Know

There are three ways to construct an audience in Facebook Insights. You can start with Everyone on Facebook, People who have already Connected to your Page, or a Custom Audience.

While we can – and will – use your existing strategic work to build an audience from Everyone on Facebook, if you already have an existing mailing list and customer base, we’re going to start there.

So choose “A Custom Audience” in the first pop up you see. (Or click Create New at the top left side, if it doesn’t automatically pop). If you have not already uploaded your mailing list, etc. into the Assets, Facebook will prompt you to do so. Create 2 lists – customers who have bought, and your mailing list. You can add a third if you’d like of people already in your sales funnel, but presumably they got there by exchanging their email for a Lead Magnet, so they should already be in the email list. Don’t worry that your existing customers are also in your mailing list, we’re using this first step to learn about them, not try and post ads in their feed.

By the way, the Custom Audience can be built from email addresses, phone numbers, App ID’s, purchase events, visitors to your website – or even a specific page – and Facebook pixels. You can even download the data from your GoogleAdWords account and use it as a starting place.

As you might imagine, your existing client list is going to be the best indicator of what an actual buyer is. There will be outliers, of course, but that’s okay. What you want to see is a snapshot of the most relevant people to your business, and that’s the folks who have paid you money.

Custom Audiences will always outperform regular Facebook ad targeting, because the people you’re targeting have already shown an interest in what you have to offer.

Once you’ve inputted this list into Facebook Audience Insights, you’ll begin to see a wealth of, well, insights into what defines your customer. You’ll want to make sure you save this, because we’ll be going back to it, and the other lists you do.

You’ll want to create or generate the Custom Audience Insights for your mailing list as well. Then you can compare the two and see where the greatest synchronicity lies. This information can be used to hone and tighten the scope of your strategic work – further segmenting and targeting your ideal customer. Update that profile and keep it handy.

The hierarchy of results goes like this: Custom Audience, Connected to your Facebook Page, and then Everyone on Facebook. Our first priority is people who are just like your existing buyers, like aiming at the bullseye on a target. We’ll shoot for the outer rings after we’ve narrowed our aim considerably.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but narrowing your focus to the very smallest common denominator of the people who have purchased your product or service is going to lead to fewer, but much more qualified leads that will cost you less to develop and will much more efficiently travel down the sales funnel to purchase. Then you can start to widen your search and spend a little more per lead, because you’ve already primed the pump, so to speak, with your ideal potential customers.

Getting Down to the Nitty Gritty

Just like with your laser-targeted Lead Magnets, to best use Facebook Audience Insights you want to add layers of elimination – or in Facebook terminology, going granular – the more focused your target is, the cheaper your ad clicks are going to be, and you’ll have to deal with fewer unqualified leads.

The more layers you use, the smaller your audience gets, and that’s a good thing.

This not only saves you money, but time and effort – no more broadcasting hoping to bring in hundreds of leads to pan through looking for gold, just 99% interested buyers, even if they don’t quite know it yet.

That’s also why we don’t generally recommend wasting time and money on “LIKE” contests or click bait.

Use What You Know

Our next step is going to be creating an Audience based on People Connected to your page.

This time, you’ll scroll down the left side of the Audience Insights page and tweak the location, age and interests to match your ideal customer profile. Remember, not everyone who likes your page is a potential buyer – they might even be a competitor keeping their eyes on you. You want to take the people who have expressed enough of an interest or friendship to like your page. But you want to narrow it again to the people who are square in the cross-hairs.

Your fourth set of potential people will be drawn from All of Facebook.

First, you’ll have Facebook prepare a couple of Lookalike Audiences for you, based on your buyer list and your mailing list. Facebook will generate these based on the profile and insights gathered from the lists you’ve uploaded to it. You can target anywhere from 1% to 10% of the match rate of your current list – 1% of course being the most accurate. It takes 6-24 hours for Facebook to do the initial curation of the list.

Meanwhile, you’ll create your own similar list, starting with “All of Facebook.” Just like the your Page Likes list, you’ll whittle the field down to the customers who match exactly your ideal customer. You can always go broader when you’re developing the Facebook ads you pay for – or maybe you won’t want to.

Another group you might want to target?  Your competitors’ customers.

Open either your mailing list or one of the Lookalike Audiences.

Click on the second top tab: “Page Likes.” You’ll see a section titled “Top Categories.” You’ll likely see some company names you know – and some that you were never aware of. A lot of these could be direct competitors, or they could just like the content on that company’s page. Regardless, this is a snapshot of who is already interacting with your target client.

Click on the link in the dashboard to go directly to their Facebook page. If they do engage with your ideal customer as a competitor, you can get additional insight on which of their posts are the most engaged and how. From this, you can get ideas on what to post, advertise and use to raise your customer’s engagement, contingent on your own strategic work, of course.

You can also create an Audience Insights list based on popping your various competitors’ names into the “Interests” tab as you scroll down on the left. By narrowing Facebook’s population even further by someone’s affinity for a competitor’s page, you might garner a few more people to add to your Facebook Ad target list.

Can’t Make Bricks Without Clay

So just what kinds of data does Facebook Audience Insights provide? As I mentioned in the preamble, sometimes we share too much especially in our quest for connection that more than half the United States now seeks through Facebook associations.

And yes, you might have noticed all this when you looked at where to log in to Facebook Audience Insights, but in case you didn’t, here’s a summary of everything you can learn about someone with an email or a phone number – just through Facebook:

• Age and Gender
• Lifestyle
• Relationship Status
• Education Level
• Job Title & Industry
• Pages Liked
• Languages
• Devices Used to Access Facebook – Mobile or desktop, when and where.
• Household Income
• Home Ownership
• Household Size
• Home Market Value
• Spending Methods
• Purchase Behavior
• Type of Car You Drive
• Politics – both what you claim on your page and what the things you share and discuss imply
• Location – where you are, where you’ve been and where you might be going
• Some predictive information based on your activity on Facebook
• How active and consistent are you on Facebook – and when?
• Interests – TV shows, celebrities, books, causes, websites, products, and brands you like – even if you didn’t click “LIKE.”

A little scary, right?

Affinity Vs Relevance

While these terms may seem practically synonymous, Facebook has a very specific way of viewing each one.

Facebook defines “relevance” as Pages that are the most likely to be relevant to your audiences based on affinity, Page size, and the number of people in your audience who already like that Page.

Whereas “affinity” they define as the likelihood of your audience LIKEing any given page compared to everyone on Facebook.

The takeaway being that the more of your ideal customers you target, the better their affinity for your page, and therefore the higher relevance you gain on Facebook.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Through Facebook Audience Insights, you’ll be able to better track how your posts and Ads are doing on Facebook and if they’re hitting your target audience.

You can turn that around and do a Facebook remarketing ad toward your custom audience. Not only will you have a better chance of engaging the audience at a higher rate, but should also generate more sales conversions.

The more data you accumulate, the more tests you do, the more detail you can add to your perfect customer profile. Facebook Audience Insights also lets you do highly specific split tests, so you can see how to further narrow your focus, or divide and conquer two distinct audiences.

Yes, you’re doing a LOT of work up front, but trust me, it will pay huge dividends in the long run when you’ve got everything automated and running even when you’re not touching it every day.

How About Some Bonuses, Chuck?

I thought I’d throw in a few more tidbits to help you as you explore deeper into the Facebook infrastructure and use it to help build your small business:

Where Did You Come From?

If you’re a locally-focused business, you can add high level location targeting to your Facebook Ads.

Choose from:

• Everyone in this location (the default targeting option):The most current location of the actual Facebook user.
• People who live in this location:Based on what the user reported on their Facebook profile, confirmed by IP address.
• People recently in this location:Tracked by mobile device usage.
• People traveling to this location: Users who indicated they were had recently been in a location that’s at least 100 miles away from their home.

Leverage Facebook Audience Insights for Instagram

If you’re a small business owner that has done the math and determined that Instagram should be part of your social media marketing, Facebook Audience Insights can make finding businesses and influencers to partner with much easier.

This is a variation on finding your competitors’ engaged audience.

Set up a New Audience, made up of All of Facebook and this time, sort by local, by Instagram’s target demo (18-35) and by one or more related Interest(s).

Once again, we click to the Page Likes tab and right there are other businesses that connect with your ideal client. Ignore competitors and look for companies or fan pages that you could connect with to create a win-win situation, and reach out!

Divide and Conquer

I’d advise not to put all your eggs in one basket, but use all of the tools at your disposal to make all of your marketing better.

Facebook has incredible insights, but no search engine, so their ads tend to be more passive, while Google delivers your ads to people actively searching for the questions you can answer and help you can offer.

So take advantage of Google’s Adwords tools and add that data onto your Facebook Audience Insights. Similarly, use your enhanced strategic work from Facebook Audience Insights to better target your Google Pay Per Clicks.

You’ll see better results across the board.

In that same vein, because of the nature of Facebook ads, you’ll want to have multiple ads running, and filtered so that you’re not bombarding someone at a later decision point with an earlier offer – it makes you look amateurish and like you’re just trolling, instead of going for specific users.

Additionally, you’ll want to avoid two of the biggest Facebook Ad traps:

Facebook Ad Fatigue: Since the same people see the same ad over multiple days, their engagement with that ad is likely to drop.

Facebook Audience Decay: If you’re not careful when targeting, you hit the same people over and over. You’ve probably seen it yourself when every ad on a page is one retargeted ad that appears 5 or 6 times  on a page for something you searched for.  If they’re constantly seeing repeated ads, inevitably people’s interest will decline, no matter how excited they were at first.

Having multiple, targeted ad campaigns can take care of that. It might cost a little more up front, but the advantage of not annoying your prospective clients halfway through their sales funnel journey is worth it.

Honestly, we’ve just scratched the tip of the iceberg for Facebook Audience Insights. I’m sure there are countless ways you can come up with to use the data that I haven’t even imagined. Even with the looming threat of running out of Facebook ad space, the insights and targeting are a must for any small business that wants to build its presence and sales online.

It just might be because you’re an egg.

What do you mean, I’m an egg?

First, some quick background.

It was about this time just last year that Twitter put their virtual foot down and announced that the icon they’d used since 2010 to signify a user account with no uploaded pic would be getting scrambled.

Well, not literally. But thanks to the enormous amounts of fake Twitter accounts created for the sole purpose of abusing other real users of the platform, the Twitter “egg” is now synonymous with Internet trolls and bullies.

But prior to becoming the ‘go-to’ symbol for cyberbullies and the like, the ‘Twitter egg’ was the symbol for someone who just didn’t care – or understand – enough to upload a personal profile pic. Since Twitter launched in 2006, there have been literally millions who have jumped on the platform. They know or have heard that they should be utilizing it so they create a profile. And then promptly forget about it a few days later, leaving behind a generic icon, a few followers, and more congestion on the Twitter-verse.

Including a LOT of business accounts.

And even when those accounts are reclaimed – hopefully by the actual user and not some spambot – they often still neglect to change their avatar. In today’s world that means no one will follow you. They either assume the above thoughts about cyberbullying, or presume you’re just too lazy to fix the icon, which means you don’t really care.

Sorry, it IS All About the LIKES

For personal or business, this is bad news, because like it or not, social cache is valuable these days.

And no one’s got the time to follow a generic icon, when they’re already dealing with too many ‘real’ accounts in the virtual world that don’t interact with their customers either.

Which reminds me – if you’re going to have social media profiles (and yes, that’s a given now) – make sure you’re monitoring them and being responsive to complaints and compliments. Several companies like, say @Starbucks, used to maintain a good relationship, reaching out to people who tagged them in Tweets. But not so anymore. Some companies, like the aforementioned coffee purveyor just ignore customer comments on social media. Others have set up separate accounts that are tagged by Twitter and Facebook as  “Offering Support.”

But, I hear you saying, there’s SO much social media. There’s no way I can track it all and respond to it all. After all, I don’t have the resources of @SouthwestAir, and I still have a business to run.

Have We Talked Strategy?

Well, first, I’m going to mention once again, the importance of doing your strategic business work to target your ideal customer. One of the ways to use all of that data you’ve collected is to figure out which social media channels your customers are most likely to be on. Target those first and always. You can always go back and add Google Plus or WhatsApp, for example, later. Your first priority is to established your presence on the top social media platforms your customers prefer.

Just a quick tip – while it seems like everyone is on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, they’re not. Facebook’s users are typically older, 25 to 34 year olds making up 30% of the users – and 1.74 Billion of them are checking it from their smart phones. They also have the most senior citizens than any other platform. Twitter tends to skew more middle aged and is still considered the more professional site. And Instagram is tops for visually-stimulated millennials (and Gen X & Y). They’re also more female-centric and more global.

Did I Mention Automation?

Now that you’ve established your business (and yourself) on the platforms, there are several ways you can automate your social media. Platforms like Hootsuite, Buffer & Crowdfire allow you to schedule several posts a week or more for free or a small monthly fee. But if you really want to take control, Infusionsoft has several options to integrate with Twitter and Facebook, including adding new Like and Follow-ers (and Survey Responders) to their own contact lists and tagging your contacts in appropriate relevant posts.

Now let’s look at what that social media profile should look like to start building your audience…

Take Advantage of Every Bit of Space

Every platform has a place for a bio – whether it’s 160 hashtaggable characters on Twitter, or as-long-as-you’d-like-it “About” section on Facebook – make sure you fill it out. Remember your strategic work, and give as much detail with relevant keywords and phrases as you can. You can also link to other social media profiles and answer the questions you know your ideal customers are asking.

Make sure you’ve filled out every field

Business name, phone number, address, website and again, other social media profile links. And make sure all of the links work.

Make sure you’re consistent

Pick a handle that represents your business as best you can, and use it across EVERY platform. If you can’t match it exactly, try to get as close as you can. I’ve worked with some businesses that actually choose their company name AFTER they get their social media handle.

The same goes for your images – along with the name, the photo is your brand on social media. Recognition is key here. So choose something that works – a logo or a piece of one, a face or something that uniquely represents your brand or company. Keep it simple and straightforward – and use it EVERYwhere. The more people see your brand identifier as they scan their various social networks, the more likely you are to be in the top of their minds when they need your product or service.

Don’t forget to Share the Love – or LIKEs

Especially on Facebook, connections are extremely important. So take advantage of that by LIKE-ing other business and influencer pages that are relevant to yours. While it’s primarily meant for individual users, when you make your interests or the Pages you like a public part of any profile, you’re giving Facebook an indicator about the kinds of people you’d like to be united with.

But Remember – Mobile is King

Back in the day, if you wanted to properly fit out your social media profile, you had consistent profile images, header images and even sidebars. And they all needed to be set to the proper dimensions. Nowadays, those are still good to have, but with most people interacting on cell phones and reading newsfeeds and infostreams rather than visiting individual profiles, it’s less critical.

You do want to keep it consistent – and within the platforms ideal image size. Each one has a place where they list it, but it can sometimes take a little searching. As of February 2018, the following sizes are accurate:

• Facebook profile picture: 170 X 170 pixels
• Facebook cover photo: 828 X 465 pixels
• Twitter profile photo: 400 X 400 pixels
• Twitter header image: 1,500 X 500 pixels
• Instagram profile picture: 110 X 110 pixels
• Pinterest profile picture: 150 X 150 pixels
• LinkedIn profile photo: 400 X 400 pixels (minimum)
• LinkedIn custom background: 1584 X 396
• LinkedIn cover photo: 974 X 330 pixels
• LinkedIn banner image: 646 X 220 pixels
• Google+ profile picture: 250 X 250 pixels (minimum)
• Google+ cover photo: 1080 X 608 pixels
• YouTube profile picture: 800 X 800 pixels
• YouTube cover photo: 2,560 X 1,440 pixels on desktop

For a really deep dive into social media image size and optimization, read this.

Social Media is probably one of the largest, most misunderstood and least fully utilized breakthroughs for marketing efforts in the last 50 years. You owe it to your business to do as much as you can with it. And if you’re one of those poor folks who still has one of the generic social media placeholders to represent your brand? Well, I hope this post ‘eggs’ you on to fix that, today!

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.