Author: Christian Karasiewicz

Maximizing reach with Instagram hashtags

Instagram hashtags

How many of you include hashtags with your Instagram photos?

If you have been avoiding using hashtags on Instagram, it is time to re-consider.

Why you need to be using hashtags on Instagram

For those of you who need a refresher on how hashtags work, if you do not include them, photos you share are limited to the size of your network.

This means that while you may have a great photo, if you have a small following, not many people are going to see your photos.

When you include hashtags on Instagram, you increase your chances that someone else following the same hashtag will see your photo and engage with it.

Hashtags are to Instagram what blood is to the body.

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Do hashtags really work?

While using hashtags on other social networks like Facebook do little to help with exposure.

Instagram users see higher engagement and get more interactions when using hashtags.

For example:

Instagram accounts with less than 1,000 followers and 11 hashtags receive 78 interactions.

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Source: Buffer

Instagram user stats:

While Instagram triggers higher engagement and more interactions, they also have a very active social network.

This means if you are looking to get more exposure and to grow your brands presence, this is a good way to go.

So how do you know which hashtags to use to increase your interactions on Instagram?

While some users will use random hashtags for giveaways and specific social media campaigns, it is best to try to stick with the more popular hashtags.

These include: #food, #beauty, #makeup, and so on.

This is so that you can insert your photos into the larger conversation and increase visibility with other Instagram users.

To help you get started, here is a list of some popular Instagram hashtags.

I have also included tools you can use to help identify the right hashtags to use.

Identifying relevant Instagram hashtags Continue reading Maximizing reach with Instagram hashtags

Digging up past posts from Facebook profiles and pages with the help of Google search

How to search Facebook posts using Google

Are you tired of waiting for Facebook to let you use Facebook Graph search to search Facebook posts? They say it is coming, but that was four months ago.

Instead of sitting around waiting at your keyboard to search Facebook posts, here is a nifty trick using Google to search through posts from a Facebook Profile or Facebook Page.

Google + Facebook search strategy

I have been using this Google search trick for a while and it is very handy for a number of reasons:

  • Search competitor Facebook Pages
  • Search your friends posts
  • Search posts for people you are not friends with
  • Save time and quickly locate past posts

To use Google to search Facebook posts, follow these instructions.

How to search Facebook posts using Google Search

Continue reading Digging up past posts from Facebook profiles and pages with the help of Google search

12 Important statistics on Facebook user privacy

Do you find Facebook user privacy settings confusing? While a lot of users think they have their Facebook Profile locked down, 50% of Facebook users have yet to use the “view as” feature to check privacy settings.

What this means is that even though you may have your Facebook privacy settings setup, you could be leaving important information exposed.

For those of you who don’t think that Facebook user privacy is a concern, here are a few surprising stats.

While these are important statistics on user privacy, the one that I find puzzling is this.

61% of Facebook users don’t know the third-party apps that have access to their Facebook Profile.

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With so many users blindly allowing access to their Facebook profile, it is important to know who you give access to your information and what they plan to do with it.

You are very cautious about who you give out your banking information to. It’s time you begin doing the same with your Facebook Profile information.
Learn how to secure your Facebook profile with this collection of Facebook user privacy habits to check.

12 important statistics about Facebook user privacy

Continue reading 12 Important statistics on Facebook user privacy

Getting more organized with Facebook photo albums

Are your Facebook photo albums a mess? Do you wish you could rearrange Facebook albums?

For those of you who plan to get more organized in 2014, a good place to start is with the Facebook photo albums. Not only is it relatively easy to create an album, but this action of getting organized can spillover into your personal life as well.

Here is a handy shortcut to help get your Facebook photo albums more organized on Facebook Profiles and Facebook Pages.

Rearrange Facebook albums
Rearranging Facebook photo albums can be time-consuming. Source: Joyoflife.

To rearrange Facebook albums, follow these steps.

How to rearrange Facebook albums

Continue reading Getting more organized with Facebook photo albums

How to rename a Facebook Page

Do you know how to rename a Facebook Page when you need to make a change to your Facebook Page name?

Whether you need to rename a Facebook Page because your branding has changed, you’ve spelled your business name wrong, or you just want to change your Facebook Page name, we’re going to teach you how to rename a Facebook Page.

How to rename a Facebook Page.

Why rename a Facebook Page?

If you’ve read our list of 3 reasons to rename a Facebook Page, you know how important it is to have your Facebook Marketing strategy in place before you name your Facebook Page.

While it isn’t impossible to rename a Facebook Page, the process can be a little stressful for some business owners because renaming a page requires going through a few steps and providing documentation to Facebook.

By having a Facebook Marketing strategy, you can make the process to rename a Facebook Page easier.

Challenges with renaming a Facebook Page

As we mentioned, some business owners may experience issues when trying to rename a Facebook Page.

For example, you can rename a Facebook Page as many times as you like when you have less than 200 fans; however, once you have more than 200 fans, you have to submit a request to Facebook to rename your Facebook Page.

If you have come to the conclusion that you absolutely need to rename a Facebook Page, we’re going to teach you how to rename your page.

To rename a Facebook Page, follow the instructions below.

How to rename a Facebook Page

Continue reading How to rename a Facebook Page

Social Media mistakes of 2013

2013 was a banner year for social media. For example, Instagram won Time’s Photographer of the Year, which indicates a big shift in the role that social media plays in our daily lives. For every social media win though, there were also a number of social media mistakes that were made in 2013.

Just last week, you probably heard about the tweet heard round the world where a PR executive sent out an offensive tweet, which eventually cost her her job.

And while you can always go and delete a tweet or Facebook status update or even your account, someone can always take a screenshot of a social media mistake that can cause it to live on forever.

So the key takeaway to help you avoid making social media mistakes is to be mindful about what you send out. If you’re not sure if something could be considered offensive or even taken out of content, ask people you trust. If there is any hesitation, don’t share it because it is not worth the time or energy you’ll have to expend to try to fix a social media mistake.

Remember, most mistakes can have a negative effect on a business, but that isn’t always the case.

In honor of 2013, here are 10 social media mistakes – some good and some bad!

10 Social media mistakes made in 2013

Continue reading Social Media mistakes of 2013

The one Facebook privacy setting you need to check

Are you concerned that you might not have the right privacy settings marked when posting a status update on Facebook? Learn how to quickly check your Facebook privacy settings using the Facebook view as tool.

While it is very easy to use the Facebook view as tool, for one reason or another, we forget to use it.

By not using it, this can put us into an embarrassing situation if someone we didn’t intend to share our updates with see’s them. For example, if you didn’t intend to share that holiday party photo with your co-workers.

To use the view as tool to see what someone can and cannot view on your Facebook profile, follow these instructions.

How to use the Facebook view as tool

Continue reading The one Facebook privacy setting you need to check

Facebook video ads coming to a news feed near you

Since September, Facebook has been testing an easier way to watch videos. After months of testing and seeing higher levels of engagement in people liking, commenting, and watching videos, they announced a premium ad called Facebook video ads.

What are Facebook video ads?

Facebook video ads
Example of Facebook video ads in the news feed.

Facebook video ads are a way for advertisers to display video content in a users’ news feed.

When a user is viewing their news feed and a video ad appears, the video will begin to autoplay without sound.

Before you get mad and delete your Facebook account, don’t worry. They’re not that bad.

That’s because in order to play a video with sound, users will need to click on the video to play it with sound.

What they’re not

I am surprised at how many people are already complaining about Facebook video ads. They’re not live, so you really have nothing to compare them to yet.

For those of you trying to figure out what they look like, forget about seeing a Facebook news feed with lots of videos playing at one time.

Facebook knows what they are doing. Video ads will autoplay (without sound).

One additional thing if you want to watch the video ad with sound, users will need to click the ad. If you want to skip the video ad, you can scroll right past them.

Why you don’t need to worry about Facebook video ads

While Facebook is currently testing video ads with select partners like Summit Entertainment, most users won’t need to worry about seeing an abundance of video ads in their news feed.

As I mentioned, they’re a premium feature and because they will cost $2 million per 15 second spot (source), you’ll mostly only see video ads from companies with deep pockets, which means the ads should be pretty good.

This doesn’t mean you should avoid Facebook video ads. They are coming to a news feed near you at some point so get ready.

How do Facebook video ads work?

Continue reading Facebook video ads coming to a news feed near you

2013 Web design trends – Infographic

We’re currently undergoing design changes on our website (we’re using the Epik theme and Studiopress Genesis) and so I thought it would be pertinent to talk about 2013 web design trends, as we should have a new website launching before the end of the year that incorporates a number of these trends.

So what was popular in 2013? One word, mobile.

With 84% of smartphone users using their smartphone to browse the web , if your website wasn’t responsive, you were missing the mark.

For those of you not aware of the meaning of the word responsive web design, it’s where you build a site that can adapt across different devices. For example, it works one way on desktops, adapts for tablets, and then adapts again for smartphone users.

There are plenty of reasons why this was a popular trend in 2013. The main reason is because it is user friendly. It also saves designers lot of time when doing web design because they don’t have to try to get everything to fit into each device.

While this was one popular web design trend, there were plenty of other ones that you probably saw when surfing the web in 2013.

Here’s a list of trends from this past year.

2013 Web design trends

  • Responsive
  • Metro
  • Minimalism
  • Typography
  • Parallax
  • Infinite scrolling
  • Fixed header
  • Single page
  • Large background image
  • Content first

Keep reading to learn about each one of these trends and how you can implement them into your own site.

Design Trends in 2013

Continue reading 2013 Web design trends – Infographic

Share Instagram photos and videos with Instagram Direct in 4 Simple Steps

After a failed attempt by Facebook to acquire Snapchat for $3 billion, they hit back in a big way when they announced Instagram Direct.

What is Instagram Direct?

Instagram Direct is a way for users to share photos and videos privately with up to 15 other Instagram users.

Here is what makes Instagram Direct so powerful and why it should be part of your Instagram strategy.

For example, one of the biggest issues that Instagram used to have was that every update, like, or comment was public.

Now, that isn’t the case because you can share Instagram photos or videos with everyone in your Instagram feed or use Instagram Direct to share them privately with a select group of followers.

Besides this new feature, Instagram also put Snapchat and Twitter on notice that they are a major force in social media.

Instagram Direct vs. Snapchat and Twitter

Previously, if you wanted to share a photo or video with someone privately, you had to look to Snapchat and Twitter because they offered the ability to send private messages while Instagram did not.

With 150 million Instagram users, by introducing private photo and video sharing, Instagram can keep its growing userbase within their platform.

Couple that with the fact that Facebook owns Instagram and you can start to understand why this feature is a giant step forward for Instagram.

So how easy is it to use Instagram Direct?

Follow the step-by-step guide and instructional video below on how to use Instagram Direct.

How to use Instagram Direct

Continue reading Share Instagram photos and videos with Instagram Direct in 4 Simple Steps