Tasmin

Tasmin is the Managing Director of Fika Digital with a penchant for social media and content marketing.

Location: Lancashire
Business Owner Since: 2019
Go-to Coffee Shop Order: A mocha and all the cake please

  • Social Media Marketing

    7 reasons why small businesses need social media marketing

    As the owner of a small business or a fresh new start-up, you likely know that it’s important for your business to be active on social media.

    But, do you know why your small business needs social media marketing?

    There are many benefits of using social media for small businesses. Yet many small business owners believe that they are too small for social media. They believe social media is best left for the ‘big players’ with even bigger budgets; the companies that can afford to have a marketing team, run large-scale social media campaigns, and rack up hundreds of thousands of followers.

    We’re here to bust those social media myths. Your business belongs on social media. And in this article, we’ll be sharing seven reasons why small businesses need social media marketing.

    7 reasons why small businesses need social media marketing

    Social media is about so much more than cute cat pics, posting a link to your online shop, using hashtags or showing up once every blue moon.

    The businesses that win at social media are the ones that show up consistently and have a dedicated social media strategy. The best part is, you don’t need to have a four-figure marketing budget to achieve these things. You, as a solo entrepreneur, can win on social media.

    You should have to show up consistently and keep doing the work. With the right social media training, you will soon have the confidence to manage social media for your business and turn your audience into customers.

    If you’ve been sleeping on social media, take this article as your alarm clock screaming at you to wake up.

    Some of the reasons why small businesses need social media marketing include:

    1. Build brand awareness and reputation
    2. Increase website traffic
    3. Act as a portfolio for your business
    4. Nurture your community
    5. Demonstrate social proofing for your brand
    6. Increase sales and conversions
    7. Deliver glowing customer service

    Let’s look at each of these social media marketing benefits in more detail below so you can see exactly what your business can gain from investing in social media.

    Build brand awareness and reputation

    If nobody knows about your brand, how can they buy from you? 

    There are over 4.48 billion social media users around the world. That’s almost 57 percent of the entire global population!

    Social media marketing is great for generating noise about your business. Social media is essentially digital word-of-mouth for your business. As a result, it is a powerful way to increase brand awareness and develop your reputation as a brand.

    Whether it’s someone else posting about your brand on their social media channel, resharing your posts, or you showcasing the powers of your products/services on your social media pages – Social media marketing can expand your reach and shine a light on your business.

    Increase website traffic

    Both organic and paid social media marketing campaigns are key for driving traffic to your website. As a business owner, you want people to be visiting your website from various sources.

    Relying on only one source can be detrimental to your business. So, it’s important to consider how you can use social media to increase website traffic.

    Some easy ways you can drive more traffic to your website is to reshare your blog content to your social media posts, include your website URL in your social media bio, or direct people to landing pages where they can learn more about your products/services.

    Sending social media traffic to your website also increases your chance of turning those visitors into customers. It’s a win-win situation.

    With that said, you don’t want to just coldly self-promote your website at any given opportunity. If anything, this will have the reverse effect and will turn people away from your brand. Instead, think about the ways that you can add value to your social media audience. Providing value to your audience will indirectly encourage them to visit your website for more information.

    Act as a portfolio for your business

    Ever wished you had a way to showcase your results as a business? Well, social media marketing lets you do just that!

    Whenever working with clients on social media marketing, we always encourage them to view their social media accounts as the portfolio for their business.

    Small businesses can use social media to show off everything they can do as a business. From local restaurants to eCommerce stores, SaaS tools, accountants and beyond, you can use social media to demonstrate the powers of your business.

    For example, a restaurant may share food photos of their current menu to visually show off their delicious menu. An accountant might share case studies that show how they’ve previously helped other businesses save money on their tax bill or they might want to share advice that demonstrates their expertise as an accountant. 

    Social media is your opportunity to be loud and proud about all that you have achieved, all that you know and all that you can offer for your customers. Share your awards, show off your recent work and shout about your expertise.

    If you aren’t showing off your results as a business owner, how will anyone else know what you are capable of?

    Nurture your community

    Small businesses can also use social media marketing to build, nurture, grow and sustain meaningful connections with their customers.

    Building a community takes both time and hard work. But it’s worth it to see your community flourish. 

    As a business owner, nurturing a community helps you to develop a loyal tribe of brand ambassadors who love and support your business — this tribe will be more likely to recommend your brand to friends and they’ll be more likely to be a life-long customer. 

    You can leverage social media to nurture your community by creating community-focused content. This could be engaging content that encourages your community to interact with your social media posts. It could be creating and maintaining an exclusive Facebook group for your community. 

    Community-focused social media content could also be resharing user-generated content, having a brand hashtag that you encourage the community to share or offering incentives for users that interact with your brand on social media.

    Nurturing a community can be beneficial for your business in numerous ways. Not only does it improve the number of life-long customers your brand has, it also gives you access to a group of customers that can be used for market research or gathering feedback on your current products/services. 

    One example of a company with a loyal community is the clothing brand, Black Milk. 

    Fika Digital - 7 reasons why small businesses need social media - loyal community - blackmilk sharkies

    Black Milk have amassed a loyal fan base named Sharkies – these fans are more likely to shop with Black Milk, share the brand on social media, and interact with one another through social media to further nurture the community. To Sharkies, Black Milk is more than a clothing brand. It’s a part of their identity and other Sharkies are considered their family.

    Demonstrate social proof for your brand

    Social proof is a type of social influence that suggests that people will conform in order to be liked or accepted by the influencer.

    Small businesses can leverage social media as social proof for their brand. This can be done through sharing testimonials, diving into a client case study, or showing other people using their products/services. 

    Influencer campaigns are a great way to generate social proof for your brand on social media. Seeing valued and trusted influencers use and recommend a brand can encourage other people to also try the brand. Social proof builds trust and evokes positive emotions in potential customers.

    Social proof should form a central part of any small business’s marketing strategy and social media is just one way that you can do that.

    Increase sales and conversions

    No matter what your goals are as a business owner, increasing revenue will always be a priority. Having a positive bottom line is crucial for the long-term success of your business.

    Social media marketing is just one of the activities you can invest in to increase your business sales and conversions. When done correctly, the ROI of social media can be lucrative.

    In order to increase sales and conversions through social media, it helps to have a detailed social media strategy. If you’re social media savvy, you can do this yourself. But, it always helps to have a social media professional help you create a strategic social media plan and implement it in the right way.

    At Fika Digital, we can help you create a purposeful social media strategy that is developed with both your audience and your goals in mind. This strategy will be tailored specifically to your business needs (and wants!) to make sure you are getting exactly what you want out of your social media marketing.

    Some ways that you can use social media to increase conversions include:

    • Adding a strong call to action to your social media posts, bio and/or header image
    • Running exclusive social media webinars (think Instagram Live) as a way to pre-sell a product/service and pitch your products/services
    • Make use of the Shop features on Facebook and Instagram if you have an eCommerce business
    • Use Paid social media to promote your products/services or for lead generation purposes

    These suggestions are just the tip of the iceberg. There are a myriad of subtle and not-so-subtle ways you can increase sales through your social media marketing.

    Deliver glowing customer service

    Last but not least, social media offers your business an opportunity to deliver glowing customer service.

    These days, customers have come to expect brands to answer their customer requests, complaints and queries through social media.

    Many companies have even created secondary customer service accounts on Twitter to help them support their customers with their queries.

    Take Gymshark for example. They have a Twitter account dedicated to all-things Gymshark. Then they have a secondary Twitter account named “Gymshark_Help” where they proactively help customers.

    Sometimes, they will respond to customer concerns that tag “@Gymshark_Help” or mention Gymshark. Other times, they’ll engage in conversation with customers on Twitter.

    Investing in customer service can help you build meaningful relationships between your company and your customers. Social media can be the perfect place to offer customer service support as it allows your company to offer instantaneous support and, in turn, receive instantaneous customer feedback and interaction.

    We recommend having separate teams for your social media marketing and customer service. There is a big difference between the two roles and they can both be really demanding. If you do have two separate teams, make sure they have a strong, open communication line so that they can work together to deliver a glowing customer experience for all of your customers and fans on social media.

    Benefits of social media for small businesses: Final thoughts

    It’s evident that there are a lot of benefits of using social media for small businesses.

    Above, we’ve shared just seven reasons why small businesses need social media marketing. Outside of these seven reasons, there’s also the benefit of social media being a cost-effective marketing channel, creating conversation around your brand, using social media insights to further improve your business, telling and strengthening your brand story… and so much more.

    If you are interested in honing your social media skills, we offer bespoke social media training and workshops to help you boost your social media knowledge so you can confidently manage your own channels.

    It’s time for you to embrace the powers of social media marketing!

  • Content Marketing

    Instantly improve your business blog with these simple tips

    There’s a reason why there are over 500 million active blogs around the world. It’s because it works. If you want to get more eyes on your business, a blog is one way you can achieve just that. 

    The benefits of blogging don’t just stop at expanding your reach. Blogging can also increase audience engagement, help you gain more leads, and improve your bottom line. Businesses that prioritise blogging receive 13X more ROI than those that do not.

    Sounds appealing, right?

    Then it’s time to dust off your business blog and give it some much-needed love. In this article, we’re sharing some simple tips to help you polish up the performance of your business blog.

    Fika Digital - simple tips to instantly improve your business blog

    Sit down, relax and let’s learn how you can instantly improve your business blog…

    Instantly improve your business blog

    Writing a blog is easy. Writing a blog that generates powerful results for your business takes careful consideration. It’s an art. It requires research, experience, and skills.

    The best way to improve your business blog is to outsource your content marketing and copywriting to an experienced content marketing team who will know exactly how to develop a winning content strategy for your business. 

    The second best way to improve your business blog is to follow these simple tips to start improving your blog today:

    Choose your content topics

    Before you even begin writing a business blog, you need to define your content topics. These topics will inform what gets published on your blog. 

    The content topics you choose need to be relevant to your business, audience and goals.

    When choosing content topics for your blog, first ask yourself:

    • Who am I writing this for? 
    • What do I want to achieve with this blog?
    • How does this blog relate to my business?

    The answers to these questions will help you identify your content topics. You may have several topics that you want to write about on your business blog. However, the more focused these topics are, the more successful your blog posts will be. 

    It’s important to note that not every content topic that interests your audience will be relevant to your business, and not every content topic that is relevant to your business will be interesting to your audience. It really is important to strike that balance and find the content topics that appeal to your business goals, your audience and your company.

    Content pillars and cluster content

    Once you have chosen your content topics. You may then be able to distil these down into subtopics. These main content topics will be your ‘content pillars’ and the smaller subtopics will form your supporting content, also known as cluster content.

    Instantly improve your business blog - content pillars and cluster content

    Your content pillars should be aligned with high-value, short-tail keywords. This means that they are broad keywords that are highly relevant to your business (high-value keyword) and that receive a high number of monthly searches in search engines results (short-tail keyword).

    Your chosen topics for your cluster content will help add context to your content pillars. For example, if SEO is your content pillar then your supporting cluster content may be SEO tips for beginners, how to do SEO, SEO tools.

    After you have completed this exercise, you will likely have a number of content pillars and cluster topics for your business. These topics will help inform your upcoming business blog posts.

    Establish your tone of voice

    Your tone of voice helps your audience understand what kind of business you are. Are you a serious and professional business? Or are you innovative and fun? 

    Whatever your tone of voice is, it needs to be consistent across all elements of your business — from your website to your sales documents, printed brochures, emails, social media messaging, and so on.

    Your tone of voice isn’t about what you say, it’s about the way that you say it. So, you need to choose your words carefully when writing your business blog to make sure it perfectly captures your brand personality.

    If you don’t already have a tone of voice document, the best way to establish your tone of voice is to speak to your audience, listen to your employees, and think about what your business stands for.

    From here, you’ll be able to establish a tone of voice that perfectly represents your brand. Then, every time you write your business blog, make sure you are channelling your brand tone of voice.

    This will help you to build trust with your readers by having a familiar, consistent voice. It can also be beneficial for helping readers to identify your brand without even seeing your logo or business name – they should be able to read your blogs and instantly know that it’s you.

    Finally, your tone of voice can be a powerful tool for encouraging readers to take action. As we said earlier, tone of voice is all about the way you say things. And the way you say something can evoke certain emotions in your readers and listeners.

    Prioritise keywords and search intent

    Everything you write needs to be written with intent. Specifically, everything you write should be written with search intent.

    Search intent, also known as user intent, refers to the primary goal a person has when searching for something using Google (or other search engines). Whenever someone searches for something online, they are usually looking for a particular answer – be it a recipe, an FAQ, a product, a video, or something else entirely.

    By prioritising keywords, you can also take steps towards prioritising search intent. 

    Firstly, you need to do keyword research for your website. Keyword research will help you identify key content topics (that relate to your content pillars and cluster content!) for upcoming blog articles. 

    You can then reverse engineer these keywords in Google to see what types of content appear in the search engine result pages (SERPs). This will help you to determine whether these keywords are relevant to your business and what type of content you should produce in order to secure the top spot for this keyword. Doing this will also help you to prioritise search intent when doing keyword research for your blogs.

    Side note: make sure the content you produce is unique and doesn’t plagiarise another website.

    When doing keyword research, keep your content pillars and cluster content in mind. If the keyword has a high search volume (e.g. a search volume of 3,900) this may be best used as a content pillar with supplementary cluster content created for related long-tail keywords.

    As a general rule, your blog posts will most often be written for long-tail keywords. Short-tail keywords, on the other hand, will most likely be used for landing pages or for content pillar pages.

    Instantly improve your business blog - short vs long tail keywords

    Your keywords should appear naturally in your blog post. Overstuff your blog post with keywords and it will look unnatural to both readers and Google. Instead, choose one main focus keyword for your blog post and aim to use this naturally throughout your blog.

    You should also use semantically related keywords within your blog, along with some longer-tail supporting keywords to help further build the relevance of your blog for your chosen keyword.

    Remember to use your keyword in the following areas of your blog post (where it fits naturally):

    • Page title (usually the H1)
    • Subheadings
    • Main body of text
    • Media alt-text, filename and meta-data
    • Blog post meta-data

    Optimise images and videos

    Sure, content is king. But visual content is where it’s really at. 

    When you think of a blog post, you likely will think of a long piece of written content. However, the best types of blog posts are the ones that incorporate visual elements such as images and videos.

    Images and videos help break up the text, add relevance and keep readers engaged.

    Articles with images can gain up to 94% more views than articles without any visuals. So using images and videos in your blog posts is a bit of a no-brainer.

    In order to get the most out of your blog post images and videos, you need to optimise your visuals for SEO and on-site performance. 

    Large media files can play havoc with your website loading time – an important factor for on-site SEO. Before uploading any media files to your website, make sure they are low file sizes. Large image files can slow your website down. 

    To optimise your images for your blog, you should focus on:

    • Image file format (JPEG, PNG, GIF, etc.)
    • Compression
    • Image dimensions

    Choosing the correct format for each of the above can help reduce your image size and, in turn, could have a positive effect on your page speed and SEO.

    JPEG is often the best file format to use for blog post images as they allow you to reduce the file size without overly compromising the image quality. If you plan to upload an image with a transparent background, you should opt for PNG. GIFs are best used for animated images.

    You can also use plugins to compress existing website images.

    As for image and video dimensions, make sure you choose an aspect ratio that is suitable for your blog. The file dimensions do not need to be as big as the file dimensions you may need for print-use. So, you should reduce the file dimension to a size that is more appropriate for your blog such as 1200 x 630 pixels or 600 x 600 pixels.

    Break up large walls of text

    Nobody enjoys reading massive walls of text. When faced with a large plain wall of text, we find ourselves skim-reading, skipping from point to point and tuning out from the article in front of us.

    But break that text up into short, snappy paragraphs. Mix up your sentence length. Or add in some bullet-points, subheadings and images, and you’ve got people hooked.

    In short, break up large walls of text and you will keep readers engaged.

    We recommend trying to keep your paragraphs concise so they are easier to read. To do this, try to stick to no more than 4 sentences per paragraph. If it feels like a paragraph is getting too long, break it up!

    Other ways to break up large walls of text in your blog posts include:

    • Use subheadings
    • Add images or videos
    • Use bullet points or numbered lists
    • Add quotes with different text-formatting to make key information stand out

    These blog post formatting changes will work wonders for helping keep your readers engaged with what you’re writing. They will also make it easier for readers to digest your blog post and pick out the information that matters most to them.

    Tie your blog in with your wider marketing plans

    Your blog post should never, ever be written in silos.

    Anytime you write a blog post for your business website you should be asking yourself “how does this blog post fit into my wider marketing and business plans?”

    Whenever you write a business blog post, you should make sure that blog post has a clear goal (view mistake #1 in this list of content marketing mistakes). That goal should be related to what you want to achieve with your blog post and what action you want people to take after reading your blog post.

    You should also make sure your blog post fits into your other marketing activity. If you are writing a business blog post, consider how you can further amplify that blog post through your other marketing channels. Include your new business blog post in your upcoming email marketing newsletter, share it on your social media pages, repurpose it for a podcast, add it as a sitelink extension to your related Google Ads, and so on.

    Outside of marketing, you should also tie your blog post in with your wider business activity. For example, you should also share your latest business blog post with your Sales team so they can pass it on to customers/clients.

    You can also review your marketing and business objectives and activities and consider how you can write new blog posts that relate to these objectives/activities.

    Include internal links in your blog posts

    Links make the world go round. Seriously, writing a blog post isn’t enough. You also need to include links.

    Thing about the business blog posts you’ve previously published – did you include internal links in these? Did you point readers to related blog posts, pages or services? If not, you could be missing out on some great opportunities.

    Including internal links in your blog posts helps readers find related content or products/services. Internal links also help Google to better understand which on-site content is related which, in turn, helps Google to better rank your website.

    As a general rule, you should try to link your blog posts for your cluster content to the blog post or page for your content pillar. This will tie these related topics together and strengthen your search performance for keywords related to this content pillar.

    Internal links help Google understand the structure of your blog whilst also helping your website visitors to easily navigate to the pages and information that interests them.

    Don’t forget your call-to-action

    I know I’ve said it a lot throughout this blog post, but every blog post needs a call-to-action (CTA). Whether than overt CTA in the form of a button or an email newsletter widget or a more covert CTA such as to build engagement or encourage readers to read another blog post.

    One of the most popular ways to feature a call-to-action in your blog post is to have a CTA at the end of your blog post. This gives you a clear space to encourage readers to take action after finishing your blog post.

    This could be a call for them to get in touch, to connect with your business on social media, or to download your latest eBook and sign up to your mailing list.

    Your call-to-action should be related to the blog post it features in. For example, a veterinary centre writing a blog post about dog dental care wouldn’t include a CTA that targets cat-owners. 

    Adding your call-to-action links back to making sure your blog is written with intent. If you aren’t encouraging people to take action, you could be missing out on connecting with some amazing customers and clients.

    Finally, don’t overcomplicate it. Sticking to one call-to-action will be far more impactful than having multiple calls-to-action in your blog post.

    Instantly improve your business blog: takeaway thoughts

    If you’ve got this far, we hope you have learnt some simple tips for how to instantly improve your business blog. And, if you haven’t done so already, we recommend making some notes based on this blog post.

    Next time you write a blog post for your business, stop and think about the tips included in this blog post. Then, consider how you can use these simple blog tips to improve your next blog post.

    If you need help with improving your blog post, or if you would like personalised one-to-one content marketing training, get in touch to find out how we can help. 

    At Fika Digital, we are committed to helping your business shine online. We can help you turn your blog posts into high-quality purposeful content that encourages your readers to take action today. 

  • Content Marketing

    7 Content Marketing Mistakes Your Business Is Making

    Writing a blog is easy. You sit down at your computer, fuelled by a spark of passion and creativity, and begin to write. Then you cast your eyes back over your wordy masterpiece, hit publish and sit back waiting for the views to come rolling in.

    But wait.

    Writing content isn’t always that easy. 

    In order to create content that consistently produces results for your business, you need a solid content marketing strategy.

    Blog - Content Marketing Mistakes Your Business Is Making

    Creating blog posts and social media content on a whim can be great when you’re just getting started. But this type of content planning will only get you so far.

    To help you start creating content that serves your audience and your business, let’s begin by looking at the content marketing mistakes your business is making right now, or that you want to avoid making in the future.

    Before we dive into the content marketing mistakes to avoid, we first want to hold our hands up and say that we’re also guilty of making these mistakes from time to time. Nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes.

    But the trick is to be aware of the mistakes you are making so that you can recognise them, rectify them and stop them from being made again in the future.

    Writing for the sake of writing

    The number one mistake that we see small businesses making when it comes to content marketing is this: writing for the sake of writing.

    You know you need to write content for your business. But you don’t know the reason why you need content or which content it is you need. In turn, you will just create content for the sake of it.

    The result? You will end up with a blog, social media channel, newsletter or podcast that is filled with high-quantity and low-quality content.

    Churning out content can sometimes be counterproductive for your business. Especially if you are churning content out without a strategic plan to inform your content creation. 

    Content strategy is the backbone of content marketing. You need to understand the ‘why’, ‘how’ and ‘who’ behind your content before you start writing. By doing this, you can make sure that you are creating purposeful content that people want to read. 

    More importantly, you can create content that inspires your audience to take action.

    Thinking content marketing means just writing blog posts

    Did you know that your content marketing strategy is about more than just writing blog posts?

    By now you’re probably all too familiar with the phrase ‘content is King’. However, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking content is King = blog posts are King. This isn’t true at all.

    The real secret is knowing that content variety is King. If you are guilty of having a one-track mind when it comes to creating content for your brand, it’s time to get off the single content marketing treadmill and onto the content marketing field.

    Content marketing can include:

    • Blog posts
    • Whitepapers
    • eBooks
    • Webinars
    • How-to guides
    • Checklists and listicles
    • Podcasts
    • Short-form videos
    • Long-form videos
    • Memes (yes, really!)
    • Social media posts
    • GIFs
    • Infographics
    • Case studies
    • Animations
    • Live videos

    It’s time to move beyond the blog post and start thinking about what other types of content would appeal to your target audience. From here, you want to make sure your content marketing strategy incorporates each of these content types.

    Remember, you don’t always have to reinvent the wheel every time you create new content. You could write a long-form blog for your website and then think about the ways you can repurpose this written content to create organic social media posts, short-form videos and other types of content for your brand.

    Focusing on sales

    As a business owner, sales are your number one priority. Without sales, you won’t have a business. But that doesn’t mean that everything you do has to be done with the sole objective of directly increasing sales.

    It is important to remember that not everybody you speak to is ready to purchase. Think about how it makes you feel when someone approaches you in the street and instantly starts trying to sell something to you. Chances are you find it insincere or annoying and you might be quick to escape them. 

    Now, think about how you feel when someone approaches you in the street to offer you a free product. We’re going to guess that you walk away with a smile on your face and a free treat in your hand. This is because they have offered you something of value for free. You will then be more likely to think of this person/brand when you are ready to buy this type of product in the future.

    It’s all about playing the long game.

    You need to create content that meets your audience at every stage of the customer funnel. This means that it is important to produce content that offers value for your audience without expecting them to take a sales-based action in return.

    Recent research shows that only 66% of content marketing strategies prioritise the informational needs of their audience over the organisation’s sales message. Yet, 88% of the top content marketing performers do put audience needs above their sales message.

    Instead of focusing on sales (bottom of funnel content), make sure you are focusing on creating content that serves customers at all stages of the customer journey. This includes creating informational and educational content for customers in the top and middle funnel stages of their customer journey.

    Not having a dedicated person for content marketing

    Being a business owner often means wearing multiple hats at once. One of the hats you may find yourself wearing is the hat of a marketing professional or content writer. 

    Writing content is a specialised skill set that requires the writer to reshape technical information into something that appeals to the targeted audience. 

    A strong content writer will be able to produce data-informed content that is relevant, meaningful and beneficial to their audience. They will also understand what keywords to use, how best to present the information, and what the desired goal of each piece of content will be.

    Can you effectively write purposeful and results-focused content for your business if your focus is split across several key areas of your business? The sad truth is, probably not. 

    Please know that I am saying this from a place of experience (as the owner of an agency) and a place of kindness (as a fellow business owner). In the early days of business ownership, you will need to juggle various responsibilities and tasks to help get your business off the ground.

    However, this presents another challenge for your business. Being stretched thin across multiple disciplines within your business can make it harder for you to generate powerful results from each of those individual disciplines.

    This is where the power of outsourcing comes into play. Building a team of specialists where each member of your team has a specific focal area will help you harness greater results for your business. Whether you choose to hire internally, work with a partner agency or outsource  work to a freelancer is entirely your choice. 

    Almost one-third of companies (32%) lack a full-time person dedicated to content marketing, while this number drops to 13% when looking only at the top content marketing performers – according to research by Content Marketing Institute.

    Further findings showed that 50% of all respondents outsource at least some of their content marketing. Content creation topped the list of outsourced content marketing activities for all respondents (84%). This shows that many businesses recognise the value in outsourcing their content to a specialised team.

    Only using owned media

    The easiest way to create content as a business owner is to publish that content on the channels you already own. Most business owners or internal marketing teams will produce content for their email newsletter, their website and their brand social media channels.

    Content produced for these types of platforms is known as ‘owned media’. Owned media refers to using channels that you have control over. These channels make it easy for you to get your content out into the world for your audience to see.

    However, only using owned media is one content marketing mistake that can limit your reach. 

    Making use of earned media channels can be a powerful way to extend your reach and get even more eyes on your business than ever before. As such, it is important that your content marketing strategy looks beyond owned media. You should also make plans to include earned media channels such as guest posting for other publications, speaking at events or on podcasts, and engaging influencers or media publications in marketing campaigns.

    Research showed that the top performers in content marketing are more likely to amplify their content using earned media channels including:

    • Media/influencer relations (46% of top performers vs. 34% of all)
    • Guest posts/articles in third-party publications (63% vs. 48%)
    • Speaking/events (70% vs. 63%)

    Along with owned and earned media, it can also be worthwhile considering how paid media can form part of your content marketing strategy. Paid media refers to advertising channels including Google Ads and paid social media. 

    Findings from the above-mentioned research also revealed that 84% of respondents had used paid media channels in the last 12 months. Among those who use paid methods, 72% said they used paid social as part of their content marketing strategy. 

    So, if you are guilty of only distributing content through owned media, take this as your signal to start exploring the world of earned and paid media.

    Expecting instant results

    Content marketing is a business investment, not a get-rich-quick scheme. Unless you already have a large audience, content marketing won’t produce immediate results for your business.

    Content marketing requires effort and investment. It can take months before you start to see the results from the content you have produced. The more time and effort you invest in content marketing, the more your traffic, revenue and customer loyalty will grow. However, this growth won’t happen instantaneously.

    Research by Hubspot found that companies that publish 16+ blog posts per month get 4.5x more leads than those that only publish 0-4 articles per month. However, it is key to remember that content marketing is about more than content quantity.

    The quality of your content will also influence how it performs. You need to develop a dedicated content marketing strategy that is focused on reducing guesswork and increasing performance. Having a content marketing strategy that is focused on both SEO and your audience will enable you to create content that produces consistent, long-term results for your business.

    Not measuring performance

    If you write blog posts, publish social media posts or send emails and never look at them again, you could be missing out on some valuable insights.

    Measuring the performance of your content marketing activity is the best way to understand what is and isn’t working for your audience. With these insights, you can learn what you need to do more of in order to succeed, along with knowing what content tactics need finetuning.

    If you aren’t measuring the performance of your content, then you’re not alone. It seems there are a few business marketers out there who are missing out on the powers of performance analysis. In fact, only 43% of B2B marketers say they measure ROI and 65% have established key performance indicators (KPIs). Meanwhile, 67% of the top performers evaluate ROI and 83% monitor KPIs.

    So, if you want to be a top performer when it comes to content marketing, it’s time to start measuring performance.

    In order to measure performance, you first need to make sure you have content marketing goals in place. 

    Don’t have any content marketing goals? Then let’s just say that’s another bonus mistake you just might be making. Go back to mistake #1 “Writing for the sake of writing” and think about your why. 

    Why are you creating content? What do you want that content to achieve? Your answer to why should, in part, inform you of your content marketing goals.

    Once you have your goals in place, develop the key metrics that you need to analyse in order to determine performance. You can then measure the performance of your content marketing activity against your content marketing goals AND your wider business goals.

    By doing this, you will be able to demonstrate the ROI of your content marketing activity and you will also be able to figure out what changes to make going forward to ensure improved performance in the long run.

    Content Marketing Mistakes: You’re not alone

    How many of the content marketing mistake boxes did you tick? Zero, one,… all seven? 

    Don’t worry! If you have been making any of the above content marketing mistakes, the good news is that there’s still time to rectify things. Take your learnings from this article and get to work improving your future content marketing activity.

    We all make mistakes. The important thing is to make sure we are learning from our mistakes. 

    If you’ve read this article and realise you could benefit from having a content marketing specialist to help you review your activity and advise on how to create content that shines online, we are here to help.

    Contact us to find out about our content marketing training opportunities or to enquire about handing your content marketing activity over to our specialist and dedicated team.

  • Social Media Marketing

    Everything you need to know about creating Instagram videos

    Are you ready to embrace video for Instagram?

    Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram recently posted a video to Twitter revealing that Instagram will be focusing predominantly on video-based features going forward.

    What once started as a photo sharing app for us all to share photos of our breakfast with heavily edited retro filters (…just us?) will now transition to being a video sharing app.

    This move towards being a video-first app is partly to compete with the other social media video giants out there such as YouTube and TikTok.

    With this news comes more changes for Instagram – Mosseri has confirmed that Instagram will focus on full-screen, immersive mobile-first video content. They will also be developing a new feature called “Exclusive Stories” which is believed to be a way for Instagram users to access exclusive content from their favourite creators – likely under a paid subscription.

    So, what do these Instagram changes mean for you as a business? And how can you make sure your business continues to shine on social media?

    The power of video marketing

    Video marketing is a powerful tool to have in your marketing arsenal. 80% of businesses use video as a marketing tool – according to the Hubspot 2021 State of Video Marketing report. An increase of 41% since 2016.

    With Instagram’s latest announcement, we expect that figure to rise even more this year.

    Video marketing is an impressive way to connect with your target audience. From creating explainer videos to educate users and improve customer support to creating persuasive videos that generate leads and directly increase sales. 

    If you aren’t already investing in video marketing, you could be missing out on some valuable ROI for your business.

    One way you can incorporate more video content into your marketing strategy is through your social media strategy, such as Instagram videos.

    Why should you create Instagram Videos

    If Mosseri’s announcement that Instagram is going to start prioritising video content doesn’t sway you to create Instagram videos, maybe these next few sentences will…

    When asked what type of content people tend to skim and what they tend to consume thoroughly, 55% of people said they pay close attention to videos over any other type of content.

    People are twice as likely to share video content with their friends than any other type of content including social media posts, blog posts and product pages. 86% of people would also like to see more videos from brands.

    If you still don’t feel compelled to create videos, maybe knowing your competitors are compelled will change your opinion. Research by Wyzowl revealed that 69% of non-video marketers expect to start using video as a marketing tool in 2021.

    In short, incorporating video content into your social media strategy will help your business connect with your target audience and compete with other companies within your industry. It’s a sure-fire way to make sure your brand doesn’t get left behind in this new era of social media consumption and marketing.

    Types of video content you can share on Instagram

    Thankfully, videos for Instagram come in all shapes and sizes. This means that you’ve got plenty of opportunities to weave videos into your social media strategy and find a method that works for your business.

    The types of videos you can share on Instagram are:

    • Video posts for feed
    • Reels
    • Stories
    • IGTV
    • Live Videos

    This choice means you have freedom to produce high-quality and captivating videos for your social media followers. The best part? You don’t need a fancy DSLR or studio set-up to do so. 

    You can develop beautiful branded videos with your phone. Along with being able to upload pre-recorded videos, Instagram gives you the option to record videos directly in the app which suggests that they are team-phone when it comes to shooting Instagram videos.

    Creating videos for Instagram doesn’t have to be intimidating or expensive. As mentioned, you can shoot jaw-dropping videos from your phone.  

    By knowing what type of content to post and what tools to use to optimise your videos, you can easily level up your social media strategy with Instagram videos.

    Coming up with video ideas for Instagram

    When creating content for social media, you should always focus on creating content that resonates with your audience. This same rule applies to creating videos for Instagram.

    Knowing what your audience wants to see from your brand is the number one secret to succeeding with social media. 

    With this in mind, it is important that your video content strategy aligns with the content pillars of your business. You will also want to make sure that you choose the right video format for your video idea. 

    Instagram Stories are only 10 seconds long and, therefore, are best suited for short, snappy, instantaneous, and interactive videos. Meanwhile, IGTV videos can be a maximum of 60 minutes long and so would be best used for in-depth video content.

    From here, you will be able to develop a bank of content ideas for Instagram videos. 

    Here are some Instagram video ideas that you could adapt for your brand:

    • Teaser videos to promote your content, products and services
    • Explainer videos to provide followers with helpful and educational information
    • Behind-the-scenes videos to show your followers the less polished and more human side of your business
    • Q&A videos – either on Instagram Stories or Live
    • Account takeover videos to collaborate with other Instagram users, businesses or creators
    • Interview videos to share in-depth stories with your audience
    • User-generated videos to celebrate your community and build positive brand sentiment on social media
    • Talking head videos to show who you are and add a human-face and voice to your business

    This list doesn’t stop there. There are endless video ideas for Instagram so spend time to sit and curate a list of ideas that work for your business.

    Creating videos for Instagram

    You don’t need to rush out and spend thousands of pounds on fancy video production equipment. While working with a dedicated social media videographer will likely harness the best results for your business, it is also an incredibly niche and potentially expensive route to go down.

    If you are just getting started with creating videos for Instagram, you’ll be pleased to know that you can create amazing videos on the cheap.

    Video creation and editing doesn’t have to be complicated. Thanks to the rise of technology, there are many (free and paid) video editing tools on the market for you to choose from.

    At Fika Digital, we love the mobile video editing app InShot for creating Instagram videos that look incredible. This easy-to-use app is designed to be used to quickly edit videos on the go. This means you can easily choose your frame size and polish up your video content to make sure it’s optimised for Instagram before you hit post.

    If you want to create fun Boomerang videos for Instagram Stories then you can use the Boomerang from Instagram app. This app helps you to create captivating mini video gifs (boomerangs in Instagram-speak!) in just the tap of a button. You can then share your videos directly to Instagram, or you can save them for later.

    If you are an Apple-user then you are in luck. Apple users can use iMovie to seamlessly edit video content and produce high-quality videos. As it is a free video editing tool, iMovie is quite limited in it’s features. In which case, you may want to up the antics by opting for a paid video editing tool such as Adobe Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro.

    Adobe Premiere Pro is also available for Microsoft users, so the world of high quality video production isn’t limited to just Apple users. However, it can be expensive so you may first want to explore the free tools or make sure that it’s a cost that produces a positive ROI for your business.

    How to build an effective Instagram video marketing strategy

    Now that you know why you should create Instagram videos and how to do so effectively, it’s time to explore how to build an Instagram video marketing strategy.

    Although you can publish videos on a whim, you will be more likely to generate positive results from your Instagram videos if you plan them in advance. By analysing what performs well for your business and taking time to carefully curate your Instagram video marketing strategy, you will be able to create Instagram videos that attract, engage and convert your target audience.

    First, you need to determine what video content you want to create. Remember to refer to your content pillars when doing this. 

    You should also consider the following things when planning each individual video:

    • Who is this video intended for
    • What is the objective of the video
    • What action do you want people to take after they have watched the video
    • Can this video be repurposed for other marketing formats (e.g. blog article, email marketing, etc)
    • How does this video align with your wider marketing strategy

    Your answers to the above questions will help ensure that you are creating high-quality and purposeful content for your business. 

    Once you have planned, created, and posted your Instagram videos. You should also make sure that you are analysing the performance of your videos. This will help you determine what changes you need to make in the future to further improve your Instagram videos.

    Everything you need to know about creating videos for Instagram: In Summary

    As you can see, creating videos for Instagram doesn’t have to be scary, complex or costly. There are many ways that you cane easily and effectively work Instagram videos into your existing social media strategy.

    The changes coming into effect on Instagram also don’t mean that you have to wave goodbye to photo content forever. Many people have expressed their dismay at Instagram moving to a video-first model which means that even though Instagram may favour videos, its users will still want to see photo-based content. You just need to make sure that your Instagram content strategy includes a blend of both video and photo content.

    If you need help developing an Instagram-focused social media strategy for your business, get in touch to find out how our team can support you. We can help businesses create purposeful videos that align with their wider marketing strategies, resonate with their target audience, and deliver powerful results for their business.

  • Business

    Six ways to avoid digital marketing burnout

    Back-to-back meetings, never-ending to-do lists and missed lunch breaks – these are just some of the things that can add up to cause burnout. 

    Throw in the need to be constantly in the loop on the latest digital marketing algorithm updates and trends, to be up-to-date on the current memes and social media news, to wear 101 different business hats, and to be the go-to-person for creative brainstorming and online optimisation, and you’ve got yourself the ingredients for digital marketing burnout.

    Burnout is a real issue that needs to be tackled within the workplace. That need to tackle burnout is amplified for the marketing industry where 83.3% of marketing and communication professionals report feelings of burnout. 

    I should know – I’ve been there before. When working in-house at a start-up company, I experienced severe career burnout. I was well and truly exhausted. 

    My pylon light was totally extinguished. 

    Fika Digital - Ways to avoid digital marketing burnout

    After going through burnout, I vowed that I would never let myself experience burnout again. I’m much more aware of the factors that can lead to burnout for me personally and what to do when it’s time for me to take proactive action against burnout creep.

    At Fika Digital, we want to put a stop to digital marketing burnout for good. We want to make sure that you never have to endure the soul-destroying, self-doubting-instilling feeling of burnout.

    So, what can you do to avoid digital marketing burnout?

    Digital marketing burnout: explained

    There’s no one single cause of burnout. And the factors that add up to cause burnout for one person may differ for the next. But that doesn’t make your experience of burnout any less real.

    In fact, burnout has been classified as an official medical diagnosis according to ICD-11. So, if you need something to let you know your feelings are valid, let it be that.

    Burnout can be characterised by the following symptoms, as per ICD-11:

    • feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion
    • increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job
    • reduced professional efficacy

    The culture of marketing is one that can contribute towards a culture of burnout. It’s a culture that we need to change if we really want to prevent digital marketing burnout from happening.

    With it’s ever-changing landscape, rapid growth, high demands and expectations, quick project turn-arounds, and dog-eat-dog competitiveness, digital marketing is a multi-faceted and fast-paced industry that inevitably can cause burnout if not addressed early on. 

    Getting to the heart of digital marketing burnout lies with the industry and company leaders. Our duty as marketers is to make sure our employees and partners are not being set up to frazzle and burn out. 

    However, I appreciate that addressing the issue at that scale is a whole other conversation.

    Right now, I want to focus on the ways that you can protect your own energy and well-being by taking steps to avoid digital marketing burnout.

    6 ways to avoid digital marketing burnout

    If you feel like you are on the cusp of digital marketing burnout, let this article guide you through some of the ways you can put a stop to your digital marketing burnout.

    Summary:

    1. Focus your attention on one task at a time
    2. Outsource work to other marketing professionals
    3. Set distraction-free “Power Hours”
    4. Learn to say No
    5. Keep work-life and personal-life separate
    6. Find ways to improve your workflow

    Focus your attention on one task at a time

    Marketing professionals typically wear several business hats. You may find yourself having to flit between being an SEO specialist to a Social Media Strategist, Graphic Designer, and PPC expert in a matter of minutes. 

    It’s like a game of Buckaroo – you keep piling the tasks on until eventually you buckle under the pressure.

    We recommend getting organised with your to-do list so you can focus your attention on one task at a time. This will help you tackle the weight of a heavy and diverse workload.

    Traditionally, your to-do list will contain a list of everything that’s on your agenda for today. One great big list without any rhyme or reason. As a result, chances are high that you will flit between the tasks on your to-do list as you do your best to get through everything you can.

    Doing this will only lead to more internalised pressure and stress. 

    Instead, you should timeblock your to-do list and group similar tasks together. By using a time- and task- blocked approach, you will be able to sink into more focused work and you’ll find that you tick your tasks off a lot quicker than when you try to complete everything at once. 

    Stop trying to juggle everything at once and just focus on one task at a time.

    Outsource work to other marketing professionals

    Telling you to outsource your work to someone is often easier said than done. But it will help. 

    If you are struggling with your workload, please speak up about it. If you are an employee working for someone else, please tell your senior leaders that your workload is too large and they need to help you reduce it or outsource it to somebody else (either someone in your team, someone new, or someone external). 

    If you are a senior leader or the owner of your company, remember that you do not have to do everything. Owning and running a business is hard work but you don’t have to do it alone. Reach out to a trusted marketing professional to outsource your marketing work and reduce your workload.

    It’s okay to admit that you have more than you can possibly manage. By outsourcing work to other marketing professionals, you will be able to free up some of your time to be more attentive to the other tasks on your to-do list.

    Set distraction-free “Power Hours”

    Power hours sounds very hustle culture-esque but stick with me.

    Setting distraction-free “Power Hours” can be a great way to knuckle down and whizz through your tasks. Let your team know when you plan to take a Power Hour and that you can’t be disturbed during this time. Turn your phone on silent and close down your emails to avoid temptation to check your social media notifications, answer phone calls or reply to emails. 

    The purpose of having a distraction-free Power Hour is to give yourself the chance to get stuck into some deep work. So use this time to focus on a large task that requires your full attention. 

    It is believed that one hour of focused time equals four hours of distracted time. By working Power Hours into your weekly work schedule you might be surprised to find how much quicker you manage to get through some of those deeper tasks that take up time.

    Power Hours are also a great way to set boundaries with people and let them (and yourself) know that you aren’t available 24/7. 

    Learn to say No

    Saying “No”, especially in the workplace, can be terrifying.

    But it can also be liberating. 

    By saying “No” to new opportunities, tasks or requests, you will be able to set healthier boundaries and reduce the risk of taking on more than you can manage. 

    Before you straight up start shouting “No!” at someone the next time they ask you to do something, start saying no by:

    • Reminding people know what your work expectations are 
    • Letting people know what your boundaries are
    • Explaining your reasons why you’re saying no
    • Proposing an alternative

    By exercising your right to say no, you’re also protecting your energy and well-being. Saying no can be one of the hardest things to do. But it can also be one of the most powerful ways to reduce your likelihood of getting burnt out.

    Want to take on more and don’t want to say “No” to potential opportunities? Then hire additional resources to help with the additional workload.

    Keep work-life and personal-life separate

    Sometimes, our work-life can blend into our personal-life. In the marketing industry that crossover between work- and personal- life is even easier. 

    If you work in social media marketing, you may find yourself feeling the need to be active on social media all hours of the day. Outside of work, you may listen to marketing podcasts, read marketing articles, follow all the greatest Marketing folk on Twitter… it can be easy for our work responsibilities to creep into our personal lives. Especially when it’s something that we are passionate about.

    When working from home, you may also find yourself slipping into the unhealthy pattern of checking your emails at the weekend or perhaps you start work early and finish later than intended. 

    Stop whatever is happening in your life that is causing your work and personal life to get mixed up. Be strict with yourself and think about what steps you can take to keep work and personal life separate. 

    It is important that you take time away from work. You need to give yourself time to mentally decompress and unwind from the working day. You need to leave work when the working day is finished and not work into your personal time.

    As for weekends and holiday days – take them. Please! Your mind, body and soul will thank you for it – trust me. By taking time off, you will be able to return to work feeling more mentally prepared to tackle your workload and more creatively refreshed for upcoming marketing campaigns and ideas.

    Find ways to improve your workflow

    There’s a great choice of tools and software that can help you improve your workflow and reduce bottlenecks.

    By investing in tools that improve your workflow, you can help reduce some of the work pressure that builds up when burnout is approaching.

    Some marketing tools that can help ease your process include:

    • Social media schedulers
    • Project management tools (we love Asana and Basecamp!)
    • Analytical tools
    • SEO and Keyword research tools
    • …and more!

    There are thousands, if not millions, of tools out there. Whatever you are looking for, there’s likely a tool for it! We also love using automation tools like Zapier and IFTT to automate processes that we frequently do manually. 

    Make note of all the processes that you frequently do or that take up a lot of your time, then research what tools you can use to effectively automate those tasks and improve your workflow.

    Free yourself from digital marketing burnout: Conclusion

    Digital marketing burnout is about more than just having an impossible to-do list. It’s also to do with the unrealistic expectations to work long hours, feeling underappreciated in your role, and feeling the need to keep up-to-date with the latest marketing news. 

    But, it’s also more than that. The causes of digital marketing burnout are unique to each individual. 

    By taking note of the above actions, you can start taking steps towards protecting your energy and boundaries in order to avoid digital marketing burnout.

    Remember, you are not alone. We are here to help you find joy in your social media and content marketing. Together, we can help you reduce your risk of digital marketing burnout as you harness the power of purposeful marketing. Get in touch to learn more about the ways we can work together.

  • Business

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  • Blogging

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  • Business

    Knowing when it’s time to outsource work

    As a business owner, you are responsible for the success of your business. In the early days of starting your business this responsibility may look like wearing 21 different hats as you resemble each of the different functions required to succeed. In any one day you may find yourself switching from CEO to accounts, marketing, sales, business development, and back again.

    Solopreneuring and being a one-person band can be great in the early days of business ownership. You can keep costs low while also testing your business model, implementing standard procedures and finding your feet in this new venture.

    However, when going solo, you may begin to find your growth stagnating. In order to grow and scale your business you will also want to grow and scale your team. This is where outsourcing comes into play. 

    How to spot the signs that you need to outsource work

    The decision to start outsourcing work doesn’t come easy. If you’re anything like me, you’ll struggle letting go of the reins as you hand over the metaphorical keys to let someone else take the driving seat. Letting other people help you with your business can be scary but, when done right, it can be incredibly rewarding. 

    If you want to find success as a business owner, you cannot do it alone. But how do you know when it’s time to outsource work?

    Here are some of the surefire signs that you need to start outsourcing work:

    • You never get through your daily to-do list
    • You are getting seriously stressed out with work
    • You are doing too many different job roles at once
    • You are spending a lot of time on tasks that you hate
    • There are areas of your business that need specialised skills
    • You can’t provide the quality of work you want to
    • You don’t have time to work on new business development ideas
    • An area of your business is suffering
    • Work-life balance is a thing of the past and you’ve forgotten what you do outside of work
    • You fall behind on deadlines
    • Sales are plateauing or falling

    If any of the above statements ring true for you, it could be a sign that you need to outsource work. Outsourcing can positively contribute to the health and future success of your business. It can be the difference between business stagnation and business growth.

    While outsourcing may seem like an additional business cost at first, the return-on-investment will soon speak for itself when you find business operations thrive as a result of strategic outsourcing.

    Types of tasks you can outsource

    When it comes to outsourcing, the sky really is the limit. As you begin to grow your business, there are many tasks that you will likely want, or need, to outsource. 

    The best place to start when choosing which tasks to outsource is to first consider your answers to the following questions:

    • Which tasks take up the most of your time?
    • Which tasks do you not enjoy doing?
    • Which tasks or areas of business do you lack experience or confidence in?

    Your answers to these questions should give you a good indication of the types of tasks you might want to outsource. From here, you can begin to make plans to outsource work effectively.

    That being said, below are some tasks that you may find yourself outsourcing as your business grows:

    • Customer service
    • Administrative duties
    • Lead generation
    • Marketing and social media management
    • Bookkeeping and accounting
    • Graphic design
    • Sales and business development
    • Product design
    • Event management
    • Human resources
    • Data entry
    • Research and development
    • Calendar Management

    The above list is simply just a small selection of some of the tasks you can outsource as a business owner. In reality, the list is limitless. The luxury of owning your own business is that you have the freedom to build your ideal working day and to build the perfect team to support you in achieving your business goals.

    If you find that you really dread answering customer service enquiries, outsource it to someone who is a customer services specialist. Similarly, if you are constantly forgetting to schedule meetings, then hire an Executive Assistant to help you keep your diary in shape.

    Making sure you are ready to outsource work

    Outsourcing work can be a wonderful thing for your business. But it can also be damaging if not done correctly. Because of this, it is important that you do your research and prep work before outsourcing work.

    Take time to research the type of person, or partner organisation, that you want to bring on board and how you perceive that relationship working.

    Just as you would with onboarding new employees, it is also a good idea to have an onboarding or outsourcing process for bringing subcontractors or partners on board. You can then use this to help make the outsourcing process as streamlined and successful as possible.

    The other thing you want to consider when deciding to outsource work is whether you can afford to do so. Be realistic with yourself and make sure that outsourcing various components of your business will not be a financial strain to your business. When calculating whether you can afford to outsource, be sure to also calculate how much money you are currently losing by not outsourcing work (either through lost income or lost time) and how much money you could gain if you do outsource those particular tasks.

    Why we believe in upsourcing, not outsourcing

    Here at Fika Digital, we believe in upsourcing. By upsourcing, you are reducing the risk-factors associated with outsourcing work. 

    One quote that I always love to remind myself of as a business owner is “if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room”.

    And that quote rings true for outsourcing. When it comes to your business, it is important that you are not always the smartest person in the room. Otherwise, how will you grow? If you find that you are the smartest person in your business, then it might be time for you to begin inviting smarter people to join you. 

    This is essentially where upsourcing differs from outsourcing. Outsourcing refers to the process of handing specific work tasks and processes over to a third part. Upsourcing, on the other hand, means you are handing specific work tasks and processes over to someone who is highly experienced in those particular areas of work.

    When you begin to look at outsourcing as upsourcing, you begin to see it as a way to invest in your business and reach your next business milestones or objectives.

    Starting your outsourcing journey

    Deciding that it’s time to outsource elements of your business is a milestone moment in business ownership. 

    Before outsourcing (or upsourcing!) work, first make sure you perform an analysis of your current business performance. Consider which tasks you would benefit most from outsourcing and start with the area of your business that you can easily outsource and that is expected to have the highest performance impact in return.

    From here, begin researching the best partner for your outsourcing needs – being sure to choose a person, or company, that is a good fit for your needs, budget, deliverables, and culture. 

    The relationship between your business and the person(s) you outsource work to is central to your success so make sure you choose a partner that is the right match for you and your business.

    Once you’ve found the ideal partner, it’s time to get handing some tasks over. We always recommend having standard operating procedures (SOPs) – or playbooks as we like to call them – so that you can easily transfer all of your existing processes and expectations for how tasks should be performed.

    When upsourcing, you may want to go easy on the SOPs and trust that the person coming on board will be the one to lead on how to implement winning processes for your company.

    If you are ready to upsource your social media and content marketing activities to an experience agency, we would love to hear from you. Get in touch to discuss the various ways that we can partner with you to create purposeful social media and content marketing for your business.

  • Social Media Marketing

    How to develop a winning Instagram hashtag strategy

    Social media is powerful. It’s where we share photos of our favourite memories, connect with loved ones, and share memes with friends. It is also the place where you can grow your business, tell your story, and reach your ideal audience. With over 500 million daily active users, it can be hard to stand out on Instagram.

    But there are steps you can take to ensure your content shines on Instagram. By developing a winning Instagram hashtag strategy you can truly make sure that your business takes pride of place on the world-leading photo-based social media platform.

    While hashtags may no longer be the only thing Instagram uses to determine the relevancy of your content, they still hold a powerful place in your Instagram content strategy.

    Instagram hashtag strategy - photo of someone scrolling plant photos on Instagram

    So, let’s dive into the power of hashtags and how you can develop a winning Instagram hashtag strategy for your business…

    What are hashtags?

    A hashtag is a combination of letters, numbers, and/or emoji preceded by the # symbol. For example #marketing or #SmallBusinessOwner.

    On Instagram, hashtags are clickable.

    When you click on a hashtag (or when you use the Instagram search bar to search a hashtag) you will be taken to a page containing all the posts tagged with that hashtag.

    How to use hashtags on Instagram

    You can add up to 30 hashtags to an Instagram post. These can either be added to the end of your caption or in the comments of your post!

    Adding hashtags to your post will increase your reach by allowing your post to appear on the search page for each hashtag you have used.

    While it sounds simple, there is more to creating a winning hashtag strategy than just whacking a bunch of hashtags on the end of your caption.

    If you really want to make sure your Instagram posts are reaching your target audience then you need to develop a hashtag strategy.

    Here’s how you can do just that…

    How to create a hashtag strategy for Instagram

    Hashtags are a powerful way to expand your reach as a business. Through the use of hashtags, you can reach new people who could, in turn, become customers or clients.

    But how do you find the right hashtags to reach your ideal audience?

    At the risk of blowing my own trumpet, I have nailed my hashtag strategy when it comes to helping my clients get in front of their ideal audience on Instagram.

    Here at Fika Digital, our process for creating a winning hashtag strategy for Instagram looks a something like this:

    1. Define your core content themes
    2. Gather a list of hashtags under each of those content themes
    3. Organise those hashtags by low, medium, high, very high, and viral search volumes
    4. Use and review performance
    5. Repeat this process every three – six months (you’ll be surprised how quickly hashtags change!)

    Define your core content themes

    The first thing I recommend you do is define your core content themes. There’s no point doing hashtag research if you don’t first know what it actually is you want to focus on.

    If you frequently post content to Instagram then you hopefully will already have your content themes mapped out. If not, don’t worry! That’s what we’re here for right now.

    Instagram hashtag strategy - table defining content themes and sub-topics

    To define your content themes, first consider what are the main topics that you discuss, or that both interest your audience and are relevant to your brand. These core content themes should be high-level topics that can be broken down into more specific topics.

    For example, the content themes for a company selling eco-friendly cleaning products may be cleaning, home, environment. These topics can then be further broken down into sub-topics or related keywords.

    Once you’ve got a keen understanding of your core content themes and sub-topics, you should then be able to begin your hashtag research.

    Gather a list of hashtags for your content themes

    Now that you’ve plotted out your content themes and related keywords, it is time to start developing hashtag banks for each of them. 

    When it comes to pulling together a list of hashtags, I find that manually doing the work is the best way forward. You could use a Hashtag app or website but by doing so, you run the risk of collecting irrelevant or outdated hashtags, as well as missing potential hidden gems.

    Instead, open up Instagram – you’ll want to choose to open Instagram on a desktop over your phone. Trust me, using the web app on desktop will be far easier… and your thumbs will appreciate the break from the constant tapping and scrolling!

    In the search bar at the top, begin typing your content themes and keywords with a hashtag (e.g. # + keyword). 

    For instance, if you identified one of your keywords to be Indoor Plants then you will want to enter #indoorplants. Before you press enter, a drop-down list of suggested hashtags will begin populating.

    Screenshot of how to search for hashtags using the Instagram search bar

    Click through this list of suggested hashtags to see what posts tend to perform best for each of the specified hashtags. If they look like they are relevant to you and your industry, make note of the hashtag and the number of posts (AKA the search volume). 

    Repeat this process for all of your identified keywords, remembering to also look at related hashtags in the drop-down list of suggested searches.

    Once you have done this, you can conduct further keyword research by looking at what hashtags other Instagram users in your industry use – you can do this by analysing the hashtags used by your competitors and by influencers in your niche, or by looking at posts for your chosen hashtags and seeing what other hashtags people are using. 

    Don’t forget to do your due-diligence everytime you find a hashtag by checking if it is relevant to your industry. 

    By the end of this task, you’ll want to have a long list of hashtags for each of your content themes. These hashtags should contain a mix of low volume hashtags that have only a small number of posts under them, and high volume hashtags featured by millions of posts.

    Organise your hashtags by search volume

    Wondering why I asked you to jot down the number of posts each hashtag has? Well, you’re in luck because this next step is all about those numbers!

    The number of posts each hashtag has is an indication of that hashtags popularity. The higher the number, the most often it is used. This suggests that these hashtags are also most likely to be searched, and seen, by other Instagram users interested in your chosen topics. 

    While going after the hashtag with the most posts next to it might seem desirable, this isn’t always the best course of action to take. Yes, it could get your post in front of 831,395,672 people. But it also reduces the longevity of when your post will be seen in the hashtag search results. 

    High volume hashtags have hundreds, if not thousands, of posts being published every single second. This reduces the chance of your post being seen, unless you’re lucky enough to land in the Top posts view.

    So, what should you do instead?

    If you’re someone like me, who finds joy in organising things, then you’ll enjoy this next step. 

    Before using your hashtags, you want to split them into five categories based on search volume: 

    • Low – less than 25K posts
    • Medium – 25K-150k posts
    • High – 151K-500K posts
    • Very high – 501K-999K posts
    • Viral- 1M+ posts

    This will help you easily see the popularity of each hashtag so that you know which hashtags to use for your next Instagram post.

    table of Instagram hashtag search volume split by popularity

    At Fika Digital, we have a shiny Hashtag Database that we use for our clients. This database is somewhat of a hashtag holy grail containing all possible keywords for all of our client industries, interests and topics. 

    To organise hashtags by search volume, I like to create a separate Google Sheets tab for each of my content themes. Then within each sheet, I have a table with columns split by search volume. Within each column, you’ll find the related hashtags, organised by search volume, for that content theme.

    Use your hashtags and review performance

    Now it’s time for the fun part! 

    You should now be ready to put all that research and hard work into action by using your hashtags on your next post.

    This is where organising your hashtags by content theme and popularity comes into the play. First, you want to navigate to the hashtag bank that best suits the post you are about to publish. For example, if you’re writing about your journey as a small business owner, you may want to choose hashtags under your “small business” content theme.

    You might find that more than one content theme, or category, relates to your planned post and that’s okay! You can choose a mix of hashtags from all of the content themes that relate to your post. But try not to dilute it too much or else your post may not be as effective. 

    As a general rule, try to stick to no more than two themes at any one time, and always keep in mind what you want the goal of your post to be. This will help you ensure relevancy and quality when publishing content to Instagram.

    When choosing which hashtags to use on your post, make sure you take a selection of hashtags from each volume bracket, ensuring you have a mix of different volume hashtags. When doing this, prioritise the low and medium volume hashtags and try to use more of these in your post. 

    Using a mix of different volume keywords will make sure your post appears on the really popular hashtags where lots of people may see your post but it’s more competitive, and less popular hashtags where fewer people will see your post but you have an increased chance of engagement.

    Instagram lets you use a maximum of 30 hashtags. Do not use more than 30 hashtags in any one post. To keep your posts looking neat and tidy, you can also add the hashtags as a comment on your post immediately after hitting publish, rather than including them in your caption.

    Once you’ve published a few posts using your new hashtag strategy, you will want to analyse your results! 

    If you have a Business or Creator account, you can take a look at your hashtag performance in the Post Insights on Instagram. Use this to determine which posts get the most impressions from hashtags.

    Spend time analysing these insights to find what works well for you, what needs improvement and then test/try again!

    Repeat this process every 3-6 months

    Social media is a fast-moving industry. As a result, new hashtags are constantly popping up and seemingly underground hashtags can rapidly grow in popularity. 

    This means that your hashtag bank could soon become outdated and you may find that hashtags that once worked for you are no longer harnessing the results you expect, or want to see. You will want to refresh your hashtag strategy every three – six months to make sure that you are using the best possible hashtags for your content. 

    When refreshing your hashtag strategy, you should also re-check the search volume for your existing hashtags so you can see whether any hashtags need to move to a different column based on their current popularity.

    Final thoughts on creating a winning Instagram hashtag strategy

    Hashtags aren’t the be all and end all of Instagram. With that said, there is a reason hashtags exist within Instagram’s interface… and it’s all to benefit you, the person posting!

    From extending your reach and helping your posts get in front of your ideal audience to helping Instagram’s algorithm to better categorise your account and improving your social SEO, the power of hashtags are not to be ignored. 

    You should now be ready to pull together a winning Instagram hashtag strategy for your business!

    Our team at Fika Digital are also here to help you further harness the powers of Instagram for your business. Whether you want help developing your hashtag strategy, or you’re looking for a specialist team to manage your social media strategy, we’ve got your back.

    Get in touch to book in a chat and learn about the various ways that we can support you and your business with social media.