Tag: Instagram

High Quality Reels: A Beginner’s Guide

Posted on 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. 

Other Helpful Posts

Instagram Insights: A Beginner’s Guide

Expanding Your Organic Reach on Instagram: Video Content

3 Social Media Metrics That Do Not Matter

Social Media 101: TikTok and Book Promotion

 

Are You Still On-brand?

Posted on 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.)

 

 

 

Expanding Your Organic Reach on Instagram: Video Content

Posted on by Liz Bachmann

Instagram, like all other social media platforms, changes constantly. However, it has never been easier to build an audience organically on Instagram because of short form video content. 

Using Short Form Video Content: Reels

Yes, I am talking about reels. If you aren’t using reels, and you are missing an enormous opportunity for growth. For example, when we had less than 90 followers, we created a reel that got over 3,000 views! Personally, I have an account that had around 1,100 followers and created a reel that has 1.3 million views – and is still growing. Needless to say, no other type of content would have received that sort of attention. Not every reel will go viral — most won’t — but in my experience they consistently have a larger organic reach than any other type of content.

Why is Video so Important for Increasing your Organic Reach?

People like video because it is perceived as authentic. Video allows you to connect with your audience in a way that is just not possible through still images. This is largely why Instagram has increased the ways in which you can share video content on their platform. 

Additionally, content like reels is being pushed from several different areas within the app which increases the likelihood of your content being seen then liked, shared, or commented on!

How to Share Video Content on Instagram

There are several ways to share video content on Instagram: 

  1. Stories: You can share short form video content on Instagram that will stay for 24 hours. These allow you to engage authentically with your audience and post several times a day without overwhelming your audience’s feed. 
  2. IGTV: Long form videos are great for IGTV. Generally these should share evergreen content like a podcast or educational videos. You can organize them into series based on topics. 
  3. Short video posts: You can post short videos to your feed as long as they are under a minute. These can add interest to your feed. 
  4. Highlights: Save your stories and reels shared to your stories to the top of your feed so people can rewatch them after the 24 hour period has passed. 
  5. Reels: One of the newest features on Instagram and a phenomenal way to grow organically. These can be synced with trending music, dances, or lip synced audio. But it doesn’t have to be that fancy, you can also do a simple, short talking head video where you share valuable and entertaining information. 

Pro Tips for Video Content on Instagram

  • Include closed captions
  • Look at hashtags like SEO for your videos (yes, use all 30)
  • Create branded covers for your video content that looks good in your feed as well as a standalone graphic

Don’t Post Aimlessly!

You shouldn’t post video content to Instagram just to post video content. Each piece should have a purpose and be a part of a larger strategy. If you are looking for help with developing your strategy for social media growth, we would love to hear from you.

Additional Resources: 

3 Tips for Using Instagram

3 Simple Ways to Improve Your Social Media Efforts

Tik Tok and Book Promotion

 

Book Publicity on Social Media: Bookstagrammers

Posted on by Liz Bachmann

Using Instagram to publicize your book is one of the most cost-effective ways to share your book with avid readers. This is largely because of bookstagrammers. 

What is bookstagram?

A bookstagram is an instagram account dedicated to — you guessed it — books. The bookstagram community itself is massive. It encompasses authors and readers who love sharing their passion for books. 

Using Bookstagram to Generate Awareness Around Your Book

Bookstagram can be a great place to share your book, especially if you have a budget, but we will get to that in a second. One of the great things about bookstagram is that, unlike in newspapers or on the radio, people who follow bookstagrammers and engage with their content are a lot more likely to love books. If you connect with bookstagrammers that have a specific niche that is relevant to your book, then you are placing your book directly in front of an audience that is likely your ideal audience for sales. 

3 Tips for Working with Bookstagrammers

  1. Do not expect large bookstagrammers to share your book for free. Many of these bookstagrammers have huge, active audiences. Would you want to give something of value away for free? Probably not. Smaller bookstagrammers may be willing to trade for a free book — but make sure they have a public profile. 
  2. Research bookstagrammers before reaching out. If you write thrillers, it would be a waste of time to reach out to a bookstagrammer who only enjoys romance. 
  3. Engage with the bookstagrammers you would like to work with prior to reaching out to them. Although this is not absolutely required, it is good etiquette, especially if you are hoping to get something for free. 

If you are looking for other ways to publicize your book, check out the following posts: 

Our Six Step Guide to Earning Local Media Coverage

Book Awards for Indie Authors

Publicity 101: 5 Steps to Curating the Perfect Media List

 

Social Media 101: Instagram Updates

Posted on by Keely Flanagan

What’s New?

With over 800 million monthly active users (users returning to the application each month), Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world (Dustn.tv). This application is beat narrowly in web traffic by Facebook and Youtube, which you can read about in our recent post. Instagram didn’t earn its massive audience overnight -this social media staple has been around over nine years- so what’s new with Instagram updates since its launch?

Instagram Stories

Following the example of Snapchat, Instagram rolled out its story feature in August of 2016. Almost half the app’s following use this Instagram update daily (Hootsuite).

  • How to use it – You can either tap the camera icon at the upper left-hand corner of your app, or, if you haven’t already added content to your story, the plus (+) sign at the bottom edge of your photo in the story bar. This bar borders the top of your feed. Via either option, a camera view will fill your screen. You can select from several options in a scrollbar at the bottom of this screen, which we break down below:
  • Type is the brass-tacks option among the story features. This is a text-only post that allows you to choose from “Modern,” “Neon,” “Typewriter,” and “Strong” as themes at the top of your Story window. Type excludes the extras available in other Story features including filters, stickers, etc.
  • Music allows users to search from Instagram’s library via query, or by “Popular,” “Moods,” and “Genres.” Once you’ve chosen your song, you cut a clip of your choosing (up to 15 seconds in length for copywrite purposes) and post away. You can also use this feature second-hand in other Story features to give your content the perfect ambience.
  • Live allows you to interact with your audience in real-time. Once you hit “Go Live,” a feed of your viewers’ comments will begin. You can also invite any viewer to join your live -eager fans or fellow authors can really liven up your stream and build great relations between you and your following.
  • Normal is the option your Story camera defaults to. You can tap the circle, center-screen, for a photo and hold for a video. Like the other features, you can add a filter to your photo or video by tapping the sparkling smiley icon at the bottom right hand corner of your screen. After a photo or video is taken, you can add a filter; sticker (this includes location, @mentions tagging other users, hashtags, and even music just to name a few); drawing, and/or caption.
  • Boomerang uses an app that you download externally to access via Instagram. Boomerang is the trendy app that allows you to take a short video and turn it into stop-motion, repeating piece of content. Whether it’s opening your newest book or sipping a cup of coffee, Boomerang can add a modern edge to your Instagram story.
  • Superzoom is a feature that gradually focusses on a face throughout a video, as it is video only. While Superzoom focusses on the targeted face, background objects and people are blurred. You can select from five different filters to add the right mood to your post. Superzoom also excludes the extras available in other Story features.
  • Focus is similar to superzoom in the way that you target a face with your camera as the centerpiece of your content. The major difference between these two features is that you can make Focus a photo or video. Focus also excludes the filters available in superzoom, as well as the extras that other features include.
  • Rewind is another video-only feature that simply plays the content you record in reverse.
  • Hands-Free allows you to record a video without holding down the center button. Otherwise, for the features including video mentioned previously, you must hold down the center button to record. Releasing the button ends the video you’ve started -excluding the Live feature.

The Instagram Story is a great way to generate quick and consumable content for your audience without much planning; one in five Instagram stories get a direct-message response. This feature can tap into the potential audience you’ve been missing all along!

Instagram TV

IGTV was launched June of 2018, a function inspired by Snapchat and adopted by Facebook as well. Essentially, this Instagram update provides a host of channels that cable networks can’t with this innovation. Each show stars a celebrity or person of interest and lasts only minutes. IGTV not only introduces a new set of outlets for you to plug yourself and your book, but you can also create your own channel.

  • How to use it – By tapping the television icon in the upper-right-hand corner of your app, next to the direct message icon, the IGTV feed will open. There you will find a cog; upon tapping the cog a prompt to create your own channel will appear. You can either upload videos from your mobile library or record one from the application. There is no landscape layout to this feature -vertical videos only, making it optimal for mobile use. IGTV is great for users who want to publish videos longer than a minute to their Instagram audience.

If you find yourself struggling with these new Instagram updates, don’t panic. We have an infographic that breaks down the basic functions of Instagram for beginners.

Stay posted for more great information on social media for authors!