One way to spring clean your business is to spring clean your marketing plan. These plans should always be reviewed on a monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis. Here are four ways to spring clean your marketing strategy, thus your plan.

1. Review: Goals and Social Media Analytics

Review the business goals you set out for the first three months of your business and what marketing initiatives you performed to help achieve those goals. Did you meet your goals? Why or why not? Did you fulfill all of the marketing initiatives you set out to do? What were the results?

What does your social media analytics show on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, or TikTok? How are your posts performing? Do certain posts have higher engagement? Who are you attracting with the content you are posting? Reviewing this information will help you understand what type of content to continue publishing and give you a better idea of who your audience really is.

Once you review, you can set the goals for the next quarter knowing what worked well in the past.

2. Review your sales promotions/campaigns and events

If you had any promotions over the past 3 months, how did they go? What were the results? What is considered a success? Would you do it again? If you attended any events, did any result in new business? Would you pay the same money for the same event again?

This will help you understand if you will repeat some of your promotions/campaigns or if you will try something different.

3. Review your marketing budget – A Great Way To Spring Clean Your Marketing

What is your marketing budget looking like today? Are you on track with the money you invested in your marketing? Have you overspent? Could you cut back in areas? Be sure to review your spending so that you can make the appropriate adjustments for marketing spending for the remainder of the year.

4. Plan out your content

Content planning helps eliminate guesswork, procrastination, and in some cases, pushing off the task so long that it doesn’t get done. You don’t necessarily need to plan out your content for the entire next quarter, but you can map out your content ideas for the next couple of weeks or even a month. What Holidays do you celebrate/acknowledge? What sales/promotions/events do you plan on having? How can you inspire or connect with your audience?

Bonus Tips For Spring Cleaning Your Marketing

1. Take a look at your FOLLOWING list on your social media accounts and delete the ones you don’t engage in.
2. Take a look at the Facebook groups you belong to and leave the groups you don’t engage in.
3. Take a look at what your competitors are doing and what is gaining attention and engagement on social media.
4. Check your website to ensure it is updated and all the information is still accurate, including plugin updates.

Need help with your business marketing plan? Let’s set up a time to talk about how I can support you, book your time here.

READ: What you need for social media marketing success here.

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In a world of DIY, social media apps, and a phone on your camera many businesses are neglecting a key component of their marketing. Planning a proper brand photo session.

There are many reasons why you should consider this as a necessary part of your marketing plan. The first is that professional images make you stand out and give you a competitive edge. 

Create content to attract your ideal clients

Most small businesses aren’t influencers, they love what they do and want to focus on that. As a brand photographer, I help them to create the content they need to attract their ideal clients and make their marketing easier. A photographer is not just a button pusher. They are creative visual storytellers that can bring your ideas and message together in an image that you in turn will use to market your business.

Brand photography is about connecting

Brand photography is a relatively new niche as digital marketing becomes the norm. We’ve gone from a good headshot and a handful of images to needing a lot more images for social media and our websites. Brand photography is about connecting the personal and the business through lifestyle images that share who you are and what you do. It incorporates everything from killer headshots for your profiles, environmental action images, and your own stock images for your website and social media posts.

So how do you know if you’re hiring the right photographer for the job?

First, you want to make sure you see their portfolio, that you like their style and that it matches your vision.

Then you want to talk to the photographer. You can ask them how long they’ve been doing brand photography? What is their process to create the plan for your session? Remember you want someone who understands your business and can translate your vision into reality, brand photography is more than just a pretty picture.

What does the commercial license cover? This is important because as a business you don’t want to be second-guessing how you can use your photos or incurring penalties for misuse. Knowing how you’re going to use the images or some images ahead of time will save you a ton of time and money. Don’t worry if it seems expensive upfront, these images are designed to pay for themselves and then some. If you have a particular need beyond your website and social media like a book cover or billboard be sure to discuss this with your photographer in advance. It could impact how they decide to shoot and the size of images you might need.

Can you edit the photos? Many traditional photographers don’t want you to edit their artistic work. As a brand photographer, you may need to make changes to an image based on your marketing campaign, crop, add text or add or remove people or backgrounds. Be sure you are allowed to do this.

Do I need to credit the photographer? As a photographer, I love to get credit for my work but I also understand that as a business you need to be able to use these images without having to credit someone else. A brand photographer will not require you to give credit except for specific instances where it’s industry standard.

It is important to feel a connection with the photographer you choose to work with

At the end of the day, it’s important to feel a connection with the photographer you choose to work with. No matter how much you like someone’s work, if you aren’t comfortable with the person you won’t feel comfortable in front of the camera with them. Being in front of the camera is a vulnerable experience for most people and requires a high degree of trust to get comfortable.

About the guest blogger:

Jenn Grachow is a professional photographer with over 14 years of experience. She is a formally trained professional and truly believes that every business should have great images and you should be comfortable in front of the camera.

Jenn specializes in brand photography for entrepreneurs, artists, designers, online educators, speakers, etc… She helps you take your professional image and business to the next level!

Connect with Jenn: Website | Facebook | Instagram

Related Blog: Ways to use your branding photos

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I have been talking about the importance of video for, literally, years. Each year, I have been telling you that video is something not to push to the side, to slowly embrace. And with the announcement made by Instagram™ last week, we really need to pay even closer attention and incorporate video into our social media marketing strategy.

The good news is there are so many ways to create a video without being in front of the camera. I will be sharing my tips through upcoming emails and on my social media channels, especially on Instagram™, so be sure to follow if you aren’t already.

Here are five predictions that I think will be the key things to focus on in 2022 when it comes to social media marketing and video:

Edutainment Videos will continue to thrive.

Edutainment videos are those that are entertaining and educational. We have seen an uprise of this style of video online and it will continue to be popular. You can be sure I will share ways to create these types of videos so that you don’t feel foolish, you can have fun but still remain authentic to who you are and be on-brand.

Focus On Short Form Videos.

Short-form videos are still on-trend. Just pay attention to the online space and what features have recently been released on all the social media platforms that TikTok™ started. Instagram™ Reels, Youtube™ Shorts, even LinkedIn™ is working on a short-form video feature that will soon replace its now obsolete Stories. Create quick, concise, short videos.

Captioning Is Important.

People continue to watch videos without sounds. Creating a video with captions or highlights of what you are saying will be important.

Less Production.

People continue to gravitate toward an authentic approach to marketing. Overly produced videos still have their place, but it’s not something that you need to spend too much time on.

Video Messaging Shouldn’t Be Ignored.

What feels more like a personal touch? Seeing a response text in your DM or seeing a quick video message from someone? Consider sending video messages to people who reach out to you in your DMs.

Be sure to incorporate more videos into your social media marketing strategy. In a world where it feels like face-to-face interaction is never guaranteed, video helps us with connectivity.

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If you are using Instagram for your business and you are only posting feed posts, you are missing out.

Instagram wants to be the go-to all-in-one social media platform so that people will stay on the app for a longer time. They continue to update and release new features to help achieve this.

Did you know that there are seven areas where you can post content? You can post content in Feed Posts, Stories, Highlights, IGTV, Live, Reels, and Guides. Instagram even has an area where you can save other people’s content similar to Pinterest called Saved Post. The Stories feature was created to rival Snapchat, IGTV rivals Youtube with the ability to add longer formate videos, and newly released Reels feature rivals Tiktok.

Here’s the thing, whenever Instagram releases a new feature or a new area where you can post content, they want you to use that feature. When you start using it right away, the algorithms are in your favour! So if you want to build your presence on Instagram, build your community, and increase sales, you need to do more than just post on your feed.

Where should you be posting on Instagram? Here is my recommendation for posting content on Instagram.

Time to embrace Instagram Reels.

Instagram released this feature in August 2020. Businesses that were early adaptors in using this feature saw exponential growth in their Instagram community and have been able to monetize from this. Instagram wants to see the success of this feature and therefore will favour those that use it.

Reels is a great place to share content to increase your brand awareness since Reels are pushed out to more than just your follower list.  Many accounts that use Reels can easily have views 2, 3, 4, or more times their follower list. Also, Reels are shareable content. People can save your Reels and share them on their Stories.

People tend to consume two types of content: content that is quick to consume and video. Instagram Reels satisfies both.

Don’t be overwhelmed at the idea of making Reels. If you are already incorporating video into your social media strategy, you are halfway there. You can still utilize this feature by simply showing up like you would in Stories, Feed, or Lives. You can be as creative as you want or scaled-down as you like based on how it aligns with your brand.

Want to connect with your followers? Use Instagram Stories.

Stories is a great place to make connections and have conversations with your existing followers. You can lead the conversation through the use of stickers, adding a call to action, and asking questions. When a follower responds to your Stories, their responses are in your direct messages and you have an opportunity to really build a relationship with your follower.

Continue Posting For The Newsfeed

Feed posts are still important. Posting on your newsfeed still does help with the algorithms, these posts can still get discovered by new audiences, and they are still sharable. However, it isn’t as important to post as many feed posts as it did in the past.

Your Profile Is A Mini-Website For Your Business

When someone discovers your account on Instagram the natural thing to happen is for them to visit your profile. Your Instagram profile is a representation of your business and is where people formulate their first impressions. What does your Instagram profile say about your business? Are you copying and pasting images or memes from Google?  Are your images cut off on the edges? It may not seem like a big deal, but these are subconscious cues you are sending to your audience about how to conduct business. Although you no longer have to have highly polished branded content on Instagram, your posts should still incorporate your brand colours and fonts and have a cohesive look.

It Is Time To Shift Your Instagram Strategy

Social media strategies are made to shift. In order to find out what works you need to: brainstorm, create, test, analyze, and shift. With all the new features and add-ons Instagram releases, it is time to rethink how you post on this platform. If you need help coming up with content or how to post on Instagram without the overwhelm, contact me.

For more tips follow: https://instagram.com/sachapinto.online

Read: Why You Should Get Off Social Media

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1. Have a cohesive brand message and design
2. Have a strong and clear content marketing strategy
3. Learn how to use your social media platforms
4. Consistently engage with your community

Social media marketing allows you to increase your brand awareness, increase your brand recognition, build client/customer connection and moves clients/customers from followers to consumers (paying clients). I know that sounds like a lot of marketing talk, so what does that mean?

Branding your social media marketing

When we talk about business branding we are talking about how you want to be seen and remembered by your audience.

You need to have a very clear brand message in who you are, what you do, and how you serve your ideal client.

When you have a clear brand design, there’s no confusion and people can easily recognize your business online regardless of what social media platform they are on because you are presenting your business aesthetically in a consistent way.

That means you are using your branded color palette, using the same type of fonts, even the type of filters and the language you use.

Does this mean you have to create posts and videos that look exactly the same, all the time ? Absolutely not. But it does mean creating a combination of these things and using them on an ongoing basis so that people can slow the scroll and easily recognize when a post is coming from your business.

Confidence in your social media marketing content strategy and plan

As you may know, this what I help my clients with the most.

It is important that we post content with intention. When you have a strong content marketing strategy in place you help take your audience on a customer journey that helps them know, like, and trust you. Also, a content marketing strategy helps you build brand awareness, build your audience, and turn them into paying clients.

Keep Up To Date With Social Media Platform New Features

Keeping up to date on how to use the social media platforms is super important! Social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook are constantly updating their app with new features and functions. Instagram alone probably released 14 new features in 2020 alone, not to mention any of the other platforms.

Keeping up to date is really important so that you know how to leverage these platforms to your advantage and see success in the efforts that you’re putting out in your social media marketing.

Engage with your social media community

One of the important elements in online success is engaging with your community, yet many businesses forget to do this.

Be sure to, not only respond to comments on your posts, but also comment on other people’s posts such as your clients, prospective clients, and other accounts.

Be consistent with all of these elements

If you are consistent with your brand messaging and design, have a strong content marketing strategy, keep up to date with social media platform updates, and consistently engage with your online community you should see successful results in your social media marketing efforts.

Need help with your social media marketing? Send me an email so we can talk about it.

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You are not alone and so here are three tips on how to increase your social media engagement so that you can see results in your social media marketing.

Create social media posts that people can learn from

The first tip is to ensure that the content that you’re providing is of high value to your audience. You should always think about how the content that you provide can help your ideal client and alleviate them from some sort of struggle that they may have.

Always think: “what’s in it for them”.

Brand Consistency Is Crucial For Social Media Marketing

The second way to increase engagement is to ensure that you have brand consistency with your posts. This is fancy talk for saying create your posts with similar colours, fonts, and styles to allow your audience to easily recognize your feed posts when they are scrolling in their newsfeed.

ensuring that there’s color consistency and ensuring that there is font consistency with the text that you write and even the type of filters you use should have some consistency so that your audience will automatically recognize your posts and be more likely to slow down a little bit and see what you’re posting.

Have Conversations With People On Social Media

If you want to increase engagement on social media, you need to ask your audience to engage (actually tell/ask them in your post) and you also need to start having conversations.

When you are crafting your caption be sure to add a ‘call to action’. A call to action is tell your audience what you want them to do.

Here are some examples:

• Leave a comment
• Double tab
• Click link in bio

More subtle call to actions to engage:

• What are your thoughts on this?
• Do you agree with this?
• Let me know if this resonates with you below.

Another way get people to engage is to have a conversation with them. When people are posting some sort of comment on your posts go beyond just hitting the heart icon.  Try to take it one step further ask them a question to continue or start a conversation. For example, if someone leaves a comment “love this” can you share a little more context to what you wrote on your post and then ask them a question? This allows them to give you their thoughts, their feedback, and continue the conversation.

Would you like more call to action prompts to use for your social media posts?

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