Liz Bachmann, Author at Claire McKinney Public Relations, LLC

3 Ways To Use Reels To Promote Your Book

Posted on August 17, 2021August 17, 2021 by Liz Bachmann

Instagram Reels are one of the best ways to grow on the platform. However, they can be very overwhelming for those who are not familiar with creating video content. Today, I will share with you three Reels ideas you can use to promote your book/profile on Instagram.

Trends on #BookTok

Did you know that you can follow hashtags? If not, I suggest you do that now. And I would start with #BookTok. Bookstagrammers and authors use #BookTok to showcase content around books and writing.

Often there are fun and easy Reels trends on this hashtag that do not require you to show your face (if you don’t want to) and require minimal editing.

Check out one Kelsey Darragh did here.

Give a Brief Explanation

In 15-30 seconds, explain something interesting about you or your book.

Some examples include:

Why you wrote your book
Your writer’s journey
Any short explanation about a unique aspect of your book

General Reels Trends

Another great way to use reels to promote your book is to jump on general trends. Applying trends to your brand takes a little creativity, but it should be something fun and different.

Here are a couple of fun examples:

Take this trend for answering questions and apply them to your book or writers journey
“You can’t look good in every picture you take” trend but book covers

Other Tips for Using Reels to Promote Your Book

Think of Instagram Reels like a business card. The point is to spread the content far and wide, not overloading your viewer with too much information.

Do not introduce yourself. In the Reels format, you just do not have the time. This also might not hook your viewer. Instead, lead with educational or entertainment value and have an optimized profile to explain who you are to convert viewers to followers.

Include a call to action. A call to action is an essential part of any content you make that has a purpose (and if you don’t have a goal for the content, why are you making it?).

For Reels, an excellent call to action in the video itself is to follow you or to download some sort of freebie.

More Resources for Growing on Instagram

Instagram Reels: A Beginner’s Guide

Instagram Insights: A Beginner’s Guide

Expanding Your Organic Reach on Instagram: Video Content

3 Tips for Growing Your Personal Brand on Instagram

High Quality Reels: A Beginner’s Guide

Posted on July 27, 2021July 26, 2021 by Liz Bachmann

The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, recently announced that Instagram is no longer just a photo-sharing platform. This announcement created some confusion, but is no cause for alarm. Since the release of Reels, Instagram has been leaning further towards short form video. Today, I’m going to talk about how to make a high quality Reel.

What is a Reel?

A Reel is a short-form video on Instagram that is under one minute. They are designed to entertain and have a strong organic reach.

Three Steps to Make High Quality Reels

Hook your Audience in the First Three Seconds

Attention spans on social media are extremely low. In order for your Reel (or any social media content) to be successful, you have to stop the scroll. This means catching their attention quickly by quickly stating the problem you are going to solve for the watcher.

Provide Value in Your Video

Although “value” has become a bit of a buzzword, this just means that you are not creating fluff. Share content that entertains, informs, or inspires so your audience can see the value you have to offer.

Your hook gets people to your video, but the value provided is what makes them stay and consume more of your content.

Use a Call to Action in Your Reels

People will not engage with your content in the way you want them to unless you tell them how to do so. If you want people to comment, tell them! All of your Reels should have a CTA to maximize your engagement.

Do I Have to Make Video Content?

You do not have to make video content, but you should. Video content has consistently been shown to be more engaging and effective than other types of content on social media. People enjoy consuming short-form video content which is why TikTok has been such a success.

Pro-tips for High Quality Reels Content

Create a series around something you are passionate about and knowledgeable in. You do not have to dance or point to make a Reel that performs well, you just need to show up consistently with valuable content.

If you have any questions about how you can use Reels in your social media strategy, please contact us.

Instagram Insights: A Beginner’s Guide

Posted on July 6, 2021July 27, 2021 by Liz Bachmann

You need a brand strategy to optimize your presence on social media, but how do you know what is working? On Instagram, you learn that from Instagram Insights. Today, I am going to break down a couple of these metrics and what they mean.

How Do I Access Instagram Insights?

You need to be using an Instagram Business or Creator account. A Business account will allow you to schedule posts, if that is something you want to do.

When you go to your profile, you will see an “insights” button. Click that. This will show you an overview of your insights.

How to Read Your Instagram Insights Overview

The first thing I would do is change the default from 7 days to 30 days. This will give you a better idea of how you are trending.

You can do this by clicking where you see “Last 7 Days” and selecting the 30 day time period.

Now, let’s define the terms you are looking at.

Accounts Reached: The accounts reached are the number of individual accounts who have seen your content. This differs from impressions which is the number of times your content was seen.

Content Interactions: Any engagement with your copy. For example, saves, shares, likes, and comments are all content interactions. (Fun fact: These are all weighted the same according to the algorithm)

Total Followers: The total number of accounts that follow you.

Below these metrics is a record of the content you have shared during the time period you specified. Here you can click to see what performed well and what did not.

Diving Deeper Into Accounts Reached

Accounts Reached is my favorite metric to watch because it, in my opinion, shows you where you have the most potential for growth. Let’s take a closer look. Click on “Accounts Reached” in your Instagram Insights. It will bring you to a more detailed breakdown of that data.

The first thing you will see is how many followers versus non followers have seen your content. You can see here, we have reached many more accounts that don’t follow us than ones that do. Do you know why that is?

Here’s a hint:

Reels!

You can see under Content Type that Reels gave us the most reach by a long shot because our follower numbers are currently low.

If you keep scrolling down, you can see your top Posts, Stories, IGTVs, and Reels based on reach. You will also see your Impressions and Profile Activity. We highly recommend you replicate what works!

I hope this helps clear up some confusion around Instagram Insights. If you are interested in growing your brand online, do not hesitate to contact us.

Are You Still On-brand?

Posted on June 15, 2021June 14, 2021 by Liz Bachmann

Branding is a vital part of developing loyalty and trust around your products and services. But straying away from your preset branding standards is also very easy to do. This is especially true if they don’t represent you or your brand in a way that interests you.

How do you check your branding?

I suggest starting simple and looking at your visual identity and tone to see if you applied them consistently over the last six months. As a social media strategist, I will be focusing primarily on branding on social media.

Does your brand have a style guide?

A style guide will make creating content faster and more consistent. The goal of producing consistent — but not dull — visual content on a platform like Instagram is having people recognize your content as yours without seeing your name or logo.

A basic style guide should include your fonts, color scheme, and a mood board that encompasses the style you want for your brand.

Your style guide should come from competitor research and acknowledge the psychology behind the colors you choose and the styles of type to be truly effective. You feel different when you see something written with a script font as opposed to a display font, right?

Do you have a set tone?

Some brands are funny and light-hearted while others are serious. For example, Moon Pie on Twitter has a hilarious persona. It would be jarring if they suddenly started tweeting as if they were a more serious brand like Politico.

In that same sense, if you switch between wildly different tones and do not have a strong reason for doing so (i.e. commenting on something serious and values-based as a comedic account) it can disarm your audience and make them distrust your voice.

Are you keeping your content relevant to your goals?

You may be catching a theme here which is that consistency is key for maintaining your brand. Similarly, your content needs to help promote your social media goals (and business goals) consistently.

This means you need to talk about things that are relevant to your brand. As an example, we are a digital public relations firm that has a sister publishing company. Therefore, we talk about social media, publicity and branding tips for authors that are published by small publishers or independently publish.

In addition to the tips, we also share content that jumps on trends that relates to books and the reading community. (Check out our blog about bookstagrammers to see how we leverage Instagram to create digital publicity for authors.)

3 Social Media Metrics That Do Not Matter

Posted on May 25, 2021May 25, 2021 by Liz Bachmann

Often we find ourselves judging people based on the number of followers an account has or the size of their email list. However, these things don’t really matter. They are called “vanity metrics” because they do not help you make better business and marketing decisions.

What are Vanity Metrics?

Vanity metrics are metrics that look amazing on paper. They can tell a really positive story. But — and this is a big one — they don’t do anything to advance your business goals.

#1 Followers

The number of followers you have on a given social media platform does not matter. Follower counts can be easily manipulated. Have you ever been approached by one of those Instagram accounts that offers x number of followers for a fee?

Those followers will never engage with your page or convert to a paying customer or client. Therefore, they are useless.

Instead, look at the number of people who have reached out to you because of your platforms. Or how many of your ideal clients you have managed to reach. These metrics are far more likely to give you direction with your content than solely looking at follower counts.

#2 Likes

Likes are another vanity metric that cannot really tell you how your content is performing. Measuring likes with other forms of engagement like saves or comments may be helpful, but honestly, lots of likes just make us feel popular. They don’t do much to meet our business goals.

#3 Subscribers

Subscribers are like followers. They don’t matter unless they will convert and/or are your ideal client. Although it feels nice to have a lot of attention, it is far better to have a small number of incredibly loyal and active fans than a large number on a spreadsheet.

So what metrics should you track?

These depend on your business and social media goals. If you are trying to engage your current community, comments are awesome. If you are trying to spread awareness, retweets and shares are your best friends.

Trying to create a one-size-fits-all plan for marketing or metrics won’t work because each company and each ideal client/customer is different.

If you are interested in developing your brand and social media strategy, send us an email at cmprteam@clairemckinneypr.com.

For more social media tips, check out these articles:

Skyrocket Your Organic Reach on Instagram with Video

3 Quick Tips for Using Instagram for your Personal Brand

A Roadmap to Using Bookstagram for Online Book Publicity

Author: Liz Bachmann

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