Instagram for Business

How is Instagram being used for business

Putting a link in your Instagram bio is beneficial to your business. As people are skimming through your Instagram they are going to be curious as to where or what your business is, this is why it is important to include your website link within your Instagram’s bio.  Adding a link to your bio will add traffic to that website and allow the user to get the most out of their Instagram. Make sure that link is a track-able link to ensure you can follow the amount of times someone has clicked on the link or how many people a day have clicked on the link.

Having an Instagram makes people trust you and feel they know you on a personal level.  People will buy from the people they trust.

Because Instagram is such a simple and easy to use social media platform, it is ideal for business. This is because everyone can use it, every age, every interest, everyone.  When everyone can use something it opens up the potential for that something to be a prime place to sell a product or service. Almost every walk of life is going to be able to use Instagram and be able to see your products or services.

Instagram is entertaining. No one wants to sit and read a boring article about a business, they want to look at fun interesting engaging photos. Instagram provides that for your business.

Brands that use Instagram:

Ben and Jerry’s, they use Instagram to post mouth watering photos of their ice cream.  This is such a great way to get people to notice what they want them to notice.  They want to showcase their rich creamy ice cream with all different flavors and toppings. Instagram is perfect for them because it allows them to utilize the beauty of their product.

Starbucks, they utilize the ability to connect to their customers through Instagram.  They will re post pictures of users that posted pictures using the hashtag “Starbucks”.  This not only connects to the customer and makes them believe they have a chance at being something big like Starbucks but it gets their name out there.  Everyone person that posts that hashtag is adverting Starbucks.  This is a win win for Starbucks.

Christian Louboutin, the famous shoe designer.  Christian Louboutin has used Instagram to aso connect to his followers.  He does this by posting works in progress.  He will post a picture of a show that it in the design stages or that is maybe getting finishing touches added on to it.  This lets viewers see and feel what it is like backstage the shoe show.

Oreo’s, Oreo’s are a basic cookie but use Instagram to utilize the infinite cookies abilities.  They will post images of different crafts or creative things you can do with Oreo’s.  Different ways you can cut them or different toppings you can put on them, just fun interesting things people wouldn’t typically think with Oreo’s.

Social Media and Restaurants/Retailers

Social Media and Restaurants/Retailers

Restaurants:

1. Chop Shop is a health restaurant that serves fresh pressed juices.  Chop Shop utilized Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  On Facebook they post the menu and special events.  Every Wednesday night Chop Shop with host a comedy show then post pictures on Facebook. On Twitter, a customer can post about their experience at Chop Shop.  If someone had a bad experience they can tweet to Chop Shop and they will receive a free gift card.  On twitter they also post about what new items they have to offer.  Chop Shop has very artistic looking food so they encourage customers to follow them on Instagram, so they can post what new and in season foods they carry and in what locations.
2. The Mellow Mushroom is connected through Facebook, Twitter, Pintrist, Instagram, Google+, and YouTube. On Facebook they post about new locations and new food items on the menu. They also upload the cartoon videos that they post on YouTube on Facebook as well. On twitter they ask customers interesting questions about the items on the menu in hopes to engage with the customers.  Instagram and Pintrist are used to post photos of the unique pizza the mellow mushroom has created.  Google + is used to connect on a business level.  People also use The Mellow Mushroom’s google+ page to post photos and write reviews on the pizzas.
3. Five Guys offers connection through Facebook and Twitter.  For both Twitter and Facebook Five Guys will post updates on specials and make tweets to celebrate holidays.
4. In and Out Burger, Facebook is the only way they stay connected. In and Out used Facebook to sell clothing to help promote the business.  The Facebook page has only young adults and teenagers, this is most like because they want to connect to the younger audience.  From my personal experience with In and Out, this has been working.  There are predominantly young people in In and Out.
5. Two Brothers Brewery utilizes Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.   Uses social media to connect with people that may be traveling.  Because they have locations in Wisconsin Chicagoland and Arizona, they reach a large group of people.  Two Brothers encourages customers to post pictures eating their food when they visit a new Two Brothers location.

Retailers:

1. Urban Outfitters, they use Instagram heavily.  Because it is a clothing brand that markets to young creatives, it is very popular on Instagram.  They use Instagram to promote their clothing by having hipster models wearing them.  Urban Outfitters uses Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pintrist, YouTube, Google+, Vine, and Tumblr.  Urban Outfitters aesthetic is all about Tumblr and Instagram.  They create this image of creativity and being a hipster by heavily using these social media websites.
2. Forver21 uses Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pintrist, and Instagram.  They use Pintrist to create “DIY” pins of outfits put together by Forever21 clothing.  Their Twitter right now is all holiday related.  They post pictures of the models wearing the new holiday clothing, not really twitting to anyone or responding to tweets.
3. Banana Republic has a Twitter, Instagram, Pintrist, and Facebook.  The Instagram is used to post creative pictures of outfits.  Not all modeling picture, they seem to all be monotone.  This is goo because it helped the customer visualize clothing being worn in an outfit.  Links are provided in the descriptions of these post so the customer can get inspired and then directly to the item and purchase it.  So Banana Republic uses social media to make a living and socializing website. They use social media to sell their clothes, but they do so in a more creative way that connects to the people on a deeper more relaxed level.
4. Victoria Secret, mainly uses Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pintrist, and YouTube.  Instead of just posting outfits on social media Victoria Secret posts the models doing everyday activities.  When they try to show off a new workout they will post models wearing the work out gear actually working out.  They make the photos look like selfies or relaxed photos that every average person can take.  This makes Victoria Secret more like the customers.
5. Aldo Shoes, uses Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pintrist, and YouTube.  Aldo uses social media to show collections for either the seasons or holidays.  They show basic videos on YouTube of their collections of clothes, shoes and accessories.

Good free Social Media Monitoring Tools

Twitter Analytics: Allows the user to see their tweet performance by a monthly basis or a custom period range, and lets them compare the amount of tweet impressions and engagements from month to month. Twitter analytics also lets the user track how many people are visiting their profile each month.

Hootsuite: The free plan of Hootsuite lets the user create two social media campaigns and track the performance of them.on a weekly basis.

Social Mention: Social mention is a great free tool for analyzing the way one’s audience reacts to your tweets, and sorts it based on strength, sentiment, passion, and reach. This is a great tool for a more in depth look at analytics.

LinkedIn and Your Business

“No Time to Maintain a Business Blog? Use LinkedIn Instead”

beef Up Your LinkedIn Profile

How Small Businesses Can Use LinkedIn’s Publishing Platform

How to Use LinkedIn: The Ultimate List of LinkedIn Tips

How to Use LinkedIn Pulse for Your Business

How To Use LinkedIn To Help Your Business 

What to post: Entertainment, promotional information, and useful content.

• 1 out of 5 posts on LinkedIn business pages should be a promotional post, the other four post should be ways to make you sound like an expert in your field.  Sound like an expert by including industry trends or key words.
• Be identifiable to potential customers. Use appealing headlines to catch viewers eyes and spark a little interest.
• By knowing the key words in your industry you can include “tags”.  This will bring more traffic to your page.  On LinkedIn you can not create your own tags and you can use a maximum of 3 tags.
• When writing your posts keep them brief yet still informational.  300 words are perfect for each post.
• post a LinkedIn Event to help promote and generate interest in your event.

When to post: “posting 20 times per month reaches a minimum of 60 percent of your audience.”  Although writing a few posts a month will be helpful as well.

ways to improve your posts: Include a call to action at the end of each post.  Things such as “like: the post or “comment below”.

• encourage subscribers to leave a comment.  This can be done by asking questions at the end of each post.

Ways to promote your LinkedIn:  Share your LinkedIn profile and some of your posts to other social media sites to inform customers and promote traffic to your page.

• Customize your LinkedIn URL. “instead of a URL with a million confusing numbers at the end, it will look nice and clean like this: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pamelavaughan“.
• If you want to share your reading interests with your followers, you can link you profile with Reading Lists by Amazon to display the books you are currently reading.
• You can also use LinkedIn Polls. These are market research tool that allows you to collect actionable data from your connections and the professional audience on LinkedIn.
• Create a LinkedIn group.  LinkedIn Groups help you stay informed and keep in touch with people that share your interests.
• Using LinkedIn Answers as a discussion board for your business.  LinkedIn Answers is a great way to share business knowledge and connect with like-minded colleagues.

YouTube is helpful for Businesses

YouTube and how it help your business

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDWvcsTloJo

This video is about setting up a business plan. I found it very helpful because is it the basis of any business.  It was very well written and had easy to understand laymen terms.

• This video divided the business plan making into 6 sections
• Then the video listed the steps to create a business plan
• Includes helpful tips through the whole video

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIaowhMkOBM

The next video is about how to market your business.  This particular video was helpful because it hit all of the points that most advisers would forget about.  Specifically speaking, the video talked about cutting out the “fluff” or the information that is not needed. I think this is important in business marketing because it is about money or getting a message out, not to look legitimate.

• figuring out your message
• stay consistent
• gain necessary marketing materials
• businesses must have blogs
• have social media accounts

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekqCMHI7pGY

How to focus and stay focused on your business. This video is useful because it touches a subject that you normally wouldn’t think about prior to starting a business.

• set goals
• make those goals small, daily, and defined

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJlhCyz2huA

This video describes owning a business, why you should own a business, and how to do so.  It is great because is explains in fine detail how to do so.  It is also an honest review of what having a business is and what to expect.

• explains taxes of people who do and do not business own
• explaining the loopholes with taxing when you own a business

5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p_0xNDfy6E

This video is good because it talks about the advantages of owning a business, the hardships of it, and some interesting plus helpful tips of small business owning.

• nimble, your decisions in any situation
• not having to worry about someone questioning your ever decision
• no one second guessing your decisions
• open mindedness
• make sure you are good at whatever it is you do
• don’t be afraid to hire people with more talent than you.
• reward your good employees

Pinterest for business

Interesting Ways Pinterest can be Used For Business

1. “Grow your business with Pinterest”

https://business.pinterest.com/en/blog/grow-your-business-pinterest

-Create a different Pinerest board for each “type” of audience that you have. “Fill these boards with aspiration and actionable pins.”

-Stay relevant with your community.  Find a way that your business fits in with that community movement.

-Add the “Pin It’ button to your website and the websites traffic will multiply.

-Pin your websites best ideas to Pinterst to increase your website.

I chose this particular Blog because it was clearly stated accurate and helpful tips on how Pinterest can increase your business’ statistics.

2. “Get discovered by millions of people looking for things to plan, buy and do”

https://business.pinterest.com/en

-Buy-able Pins, this lets people buy the items straight from Pinterest.  This is great because it is convenient for the customers. Accessibility is key to gaining new customers.  Now Pinterest has made it that much easier.

I chose this blog because it was written by Pinterest.  What better way to learn how to utilize Pinterest for my business better than Pinterest itself?

3. “The Ultimate Pinterest Marketing Guide: How to Improve Your Reach and Promote Your Brand”

https://blog.kissmetrics.com/ultimate-pinterest-marketing-guide/

-Do not promote or pin spam

-Do not run sweepstakes unknowingly. Do not include entry by commenting or pinning.

-Don’t hold any sweepstakes too often.

-Don’t say Pinterest is sponsoring or promoting your business.

I chose this blog because it clearly writes what not to do.  The majority of other posts consist of helpful tools but this blog post was uniquely about the “don’t” of Pinterest for business.

4. “The 10 Commandments of Using Pinterest for Business”

http://www.amyporterfield.com/2012/06/the-10-commandments-of-using-pinterest-for-business/

-Use the Pinterest business center. This site will help find resources, pin it buttons, follow buttons, case study tools, etc.

-Use the “Pinterst for Business” guide.  Pinterest has created a guide for business to utilize Pinterest’s full potential.

-Integrate with other social media platforms.  Also be sure to include Pinterest on other social media platforms.  Also be sure to include other social media on your Pinterest.

This blog in particular was great for someone just starting off Pinterest and a business.  It was an easy step by step blog that directs you through the best ways to use Pinterest for your business.

5. 8 Must-Dos for Pinning to Your Business Pinterest Account

http://www.verticalresponse.com/blog/8-must-dos-for-pinning-to-your-business-pinterest-account/

-Pin a variety of subjects

-Pin not too much but not too little to you Pinterest board

-Link your pins and include a link.

-Include prices to your pins.

This blog included clearly set rules a brief easy to read explanations to each of the rules.

Useful Twitter Tools

Five Useful Twitter Tools for Businesses

Twitter Analytics- is a useful tool for not only businesses but the typical user as well. This twitter tool allows you to see how many people have viewed or clicked on the link to your profile. This is useful because it lets the host monitor what attracts the most viewers.

Twitter Card- Is somewhat of a summery of what that twitter account has to offer. The user of the card can set the card up to different types of cards for different businesses and accounts.  It is like the preview of a movie just instead of a movie it is a person or businesses twitter account.

Audience Insights- Shows the statistics of your followers interests, gender, language, countries, and other specific demographics.

Event calendar- Allows the user to create campaigns to target people that are interest in these events and gets them to your twitter page. Along with campaigns you are able to create other events and exciting news.

Video Activity- Shows how many people have viewed your twitter videos and how long they watched the videos.  It even shows what time they click out of the video. This useful because you can monitor how your videos interact with your followers.

Using Twitter for Marketing

Ways to Use Twitter For Marketing

Twitter can be a great tool when it comes to marketing your businesses. For one It is a widely used app among a variety of people.  This sets up a perfect situation to interact and connect with the users.  Taco Bell is the number one example for doing this.  They tweet back to users and hold conversations with different followers.  This builds trusting relationships which leads to customer loyalty.

Promotions are another great way to market on twitter.  Holding promotions on twitter gets the viewers to see and notice your business is relevant.

All About SEO

All About SEO

“The Tree Cs of Social Engine Optimization Article”

“SEO Basics= 8 Essentials when optimizing your site”

“[Intermediate- 108] How to Write Good, SEO- Friendly Articles”

“How to Write An SEO Article- part 1″

Building blocks of SEO include, content, code, and credibility. In order to gain high visibility in search engines include key words in your HTML text. Try to impress Google as much as you try to impress visitors and customers. Thinking of your website as a cake will help understand SEO better. Include content, info architecture, CMS, infrastructure and the SEO is the sugar in all of this. Basically think of what search engines are looking for and what search engines are not looking for. The things they are not looking for may include, keyword stuffing or over use of words, purchase links, and poor user experience.  Skipping the basics and spending all your time and money on social and ‘fancy stuff’ is the same as skipping brushing your teeth and showering, but buying white strips and wearing expensive cologne,” Says Shelby.

http://www.anvilmediainc.com/marketing-resources/articles/three-cs-of-search-engine-optimization-article/

http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2259693/seo-basics-8-essentials-when-optimizing-your-site

http://help.outbrain.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1411677-how-to-write-good-seo-friendly-articles

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/how-to-write-an-seo-article-part-1/

http://www.contentfac.com/7-secrets-of-professional-seo-writers/

Testimonial

Accendi Higher Goods spiritual street wear brand has many positive aspects besides starting up in Chicago Illinois. For one the concepts on the clothing are totally original and unique. Along with being a clothing brand Accendi Higher Goods does logo designs, album covers, and webdesign.  All of this with relatively manageable pricing.

Any work of art Accendi does has a specific style to it.  I personally can point out an Accendi design from the first time looking at it. Accendi’s aesthetic is distinguishable from any other art designs.  The look is almost rugged with interesting colors.  Accendi also uses a variety of patterns that are worked into each work of art.  Patterns such as snake skin, ocean waves, grass prints.  Those are only a small amount of the plethora of textures used by Accendi’s graphic design team.

I think it is really amazing how Accendi will listen to what an artist wants in an album cover and then turn it into a work of art. That type of work really does require a true artist.  It is not easy interpreting what other people want in a design, especially if they are not artists themselves.  Accendi creates what the customer wants in addition to adding the Accendi twits to the overall appeal.

I love the spirituality that is worked into Accendi’s clothing.  Right now I am wearing an embroidered “hack the flow state” Tee shirt.  The quality is soft and durable.  As for the actual design, very eye catching yet subtle.  I think pieces like this are a staple piece to every spiritually inclined person’s closet.  You can dress it up or dress it down. Essentially it is a white Tee shirt with embroidered “hack the flow state” phrase centered in the upper middle section on the front side of the shirt.  Spirituality in general is beneficial to everyone’s lives, if taught correctly.  Accendi conducts this experience perfectly.  Instead of shoving laws and ideas down people’s throats spirituality is meant to be learned on your own.  Accendi is here to set up the road to awakening people’s eyes.  This is why many of the designs are subtle.

The crowd Accendi markets to is also very large.  Although this is not optimal for making money, it will reach out to the largest amount of customers.  The goal of Accendi is to get the message out there rather than make a fast dollar the leave.  Accendi knows people like to express through fashion.  This is why spirituality is being put onto the clothing designed by Accendi.  I think this is a great stepping stone to make the world a better more connected, advanced, educated place for humans.  “These aspects of the clothing line are ones that have not been touched by anyone else in the industry” quoted owner of Accendi.  He is totally correct in what he says.

As for the Accendi Higher goods pricing it is affordable compared to other street wear clothing brands.  A typical hoodie is around 30 dollars which is not too expensive.  Many website designers charge clothing to 5,000 dollars when Accendi charges 200-2,000 depending upon how intricate and advanced the website is.  Album work is typically 35 dollars a page.  because money isn’t the goal with Accendi, the products or services are not overpriced in anyway.

Accendi also has a book available If there are any questions about the Accendi brand or if you are just curious.  This can purchased on the Accendi Higher Goods website.