How to Use TikTok to Promote Your Business

TikTok is trending! With a global mission of inspiring creativity and spreading joy, the app has accumulated over 800 million active users since it launched in September of 2016. While TikTok may be best known for its viral dance videos created by popular creators like Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae, dance routines and lip synching are far from the only types of content you’ll find on the app. In fact, Tik Tok recently launched TikTok For Business to assist brands of all sizes “unleash their creative side.”

 When it comes to creative content and brand storytelling, TikTok is the top platform of the moment.  A simple 15-60 second video can be all it takes for your business to grow your audience and make real connections with both brand loyalists and potential new customers.  62% of TikTok users in the U.S. are under the age of 30, which also presents a unique opportunity to connect with young consumers. As the app continues to grow in popularity, it’s creators are increasingly diverse as well and include parents, teachers, politicians, high schools, universities, small businesses and major corporations. They all use the platform for the purpose of increasing engagement, sharing their ideas, products and opinions and creating content their target market can relate to and enjoy.

The app also allows for you to interact with your audience in all new ways. You can “duet” videos, comment, direct message, run contests, challenges and promotions, and use influencer marketing to spread your message.

Check out some success stories from large and small businesses that used TikTok to connect with audiences in unique and creative ways:

Success Stories

Universal PicturesThe film studio uses the platform as a way to promote upcoming movies and engage with American users. They launched a branded hashtag challenge themed #FindYourMagic,resulting in over 19K user-generated videos. The company also utilizes influencer marketing, working with 10 popular creators to post “magical stories” using magic tricks and illusions. To date this content has received over 1.3 million likes! Universal Pictures also grew more than 11K official account followers in just six days.

Clean & ClearWhile launching their limited-edition face wash in India, Clean & Clear  took to TikTok to help increase brand and product awareness. Their target market was female teens across India, and they started a #UnbottleApnaSwag challenge that invited girls to engage with the brand and show off their diverse personalities. They featured five bottle packaging styles that correspond with five personality traits. They enlisted five of the top female influencers to help spearhead the challenge and inspire participation. As a result, the campaign received more than 1.96 billion video views, 2.62 million user-generated videos, and Clean & Clear gained more than 10.4K followers. 

Popcorn Friday – In the midst of the pandemic, small businesses felt the blow to business more than most. Owned and run by the Scrubb family, Popcorn Friday is a small popcorn shop located in Spring Branch, Texas. Natalie Scrubb, seeing her family’s business struggling, seized the opportunity to help by creating a TikTok video showing off their business and their products. The video reached 1.5 million viewers! After that online orders started flooding in from all over the country. The business had an increase in sales in the thousand-percents.

Conclusion

Regardless of the size of your business and no matter what you sell, TikTok can help your brand get noticed. All it takes is a camera and a little creativity. Not sure where to start? Contact us today for help developing your own TikTok social media strategy. 

What You Need to Know About Instagram’s New Algorithm In 2020

What You Need to Know About Instagram’s New Algorithm In 2020

~ And we’re sharing the new feature Instagram just came out with below! ~

You keep posting on your Instagram, in hopes of gaining more followers. 

It’s not working.

You continue to update your stories, change your aesthetic, and you are not getting the engagement you were in hopes of.

That is where Instagram’s algorithm comes in. There are many rumors about Instagram’s methods for determining what posts are shown at the top of the feed, but check the facts below for actionable tips to finally gain the followers you’ve been looking for.

#1 What You See, Is Based On You

Ever wonder why all of the Instagram posts in your feed seem kind of similar? Or why you tend to only see posts from the same small percentage of accounts you follow? This is because Instagram uses AI driven data to feed you what they think you want to see. The images and videos you see on your Instagram feed are based on similar posts that you have previously liked, engaged with, or have searched hashtags for. Instagram is providing each user with a personalized experience based upon these behaviors. This makes it all the more important to post consistent, high quality content your audience actually wants to see.

#2 Engagement On Your Posts Matters

The amount of likes, comments, shares and views your posts are getting will impact your feed’s ranking, and a post ‘reshare’ can be considered as the gold star of all engagement metrics. A post reshare is when another user shares your post on their feed or Instagram story. This will not only increase your post’s overall views, but will also increase your post rankings, and continue to prioritize your posts more often on users’ feeds.

However, while engagement is essential, don’t get caught with Instagram bots, or fake interactions. Instagram’s data can pick up on accounts that do not show transparency, or buy fake followers – affecting your ranking accordingly.

Tip: Don’t forget to check your insights. Find out times when your audience is on Instagram to know when to post to get the most reach. This will put your content at the top of their screen.

#3 What Gets More Reach – Images or Videos?

Remember the times when Instagram posts were purely images? This was back before Instagram added video posts in the year 2013. Now as content creators, how do you decide if you should stick to images, or start getting more creative and post videos as well? While Instagram has commented that photos and videos are treated equally, the Instagram Explore page says differently. Videos get way more attraction on everyone’s Explore page. Part of this is just human nature; video is inherently more eye-catching than picture-based posts. This is incredibly important if you are looking to gain more followers. Since videos have more viewing time too, mix up your content with video-based posts and allow the Instagram AI formula to work its magic to start posting more of your content to other people’s Explore pages.

The Newest Instagram Feature

This is probably what you wanted to read about all along: the new feature that Instagram just came out with: Instagram Messenger Rooms are here! You can now video chat with up to 50 people through the Instagram Direct page in the app.

Photo from Techcrunch

With every like, comment, and interaction you have over Instagram, you are part of the population that determines how Instagram sets up its algorithm. This is to create the best personalized experience for each user.

With this in mind, now is the time for you to start creating the best personalized experience for your followers. Still feeling overwhelmed? Get in touch with us at info@imagemarketingconsultants.com. It’s time to put your Image at the top of the feed.

Source: Later

5 Tips for Creating Successful Infographics

5 Tips for Creating Successful Infographics

If you’re not creating infographics for your business, you may want to rethink your strategy. Infographics are all the rage for a reason and visual content brings in powerful results. Consumers find infographics more engaging and easy to learn from, rather than simple text. According to HubSpot, in the past two years alone, the search volume for infographics on Google has increased over 800%.

Here are 5 tips you should keep in mind when creating one:

  • The Idea.
    Look around at some of the most popular infographics for your topic and know what your goal is. What do you want your consumers to do? Do you want them to laugh, are you trying to teach them something or do you want them to take action? It’s an important first step before you begin your design. On a side note, one of the most effective infographics used by brands is analogy.
  • Write sparingly.
    Infographics overwhelmed with text confuse the reader, and will not keep their attention. Before designing the graphic, write down bullet points of the most important, accurate information on the topic. Your information should be relevant to your message, as well as unique and interesting. It’s important to tell a good story.
  • Choose a suitable color scheme.
    A simple color palette is more inviting to readers and keeps your infographic professional. If you need help picking a color scheme use Adobe Color CC, it’s a wonderful resource. Additionally, you can search on fitting keywords, such as “corporate” or “party.” This website is definitely a step-one before you begin the design.
  • Limit your font choice.
    There should only be a maximum of 3-4 fonts used in your infographic. One for the title, as accent and to draw in your readers. The other two should be used for creative in the body of the graphic. Simple and consistent is what works.
  • Start designing.
    If you’re not a professional designer, Piktochart is a great, user-friendly website. They have a variety of templates and graphics to use. It doesn’t matter how the infographic is made, you just want to follow these steps and make sure it’s optimized for sharing.

For a little inspiration, below is an infographic invitation we created for one of our clients. Now it’s your turn!

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