This week we’ve interviewed a social media manager to get more on-the-ground tips of how to leverage social media to drive traffic. We’ve rounded this up into 3 quick tips to help you!
Using social media to drive traffic: 3 Quick Tips
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Category Archives: Social Media Tips
Lesser Known Social Media Platforms You Need to Know About
We’ve all heard of the social media giants. But what about the social media sites that are localised to a country, or two countries?
If you’re trying to break into international markets and are looking for new social media platforms to help you – this post is for you.
4 Digital Marketing Trends We Think are Here to Stay
If you’re trying to market your show, your service or yourself, chances are you want to read up on digital marketing. However, trends move so quickly that it’s sometimes tough to keep up.
Here we’ve rounded up four that don’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, which will hopefully make your strategy a little easier to plan.
Reignite Your Social Media in 2019 – 3 Tips to Get Off to a Fresh Start
Happy New Year!
It can be tough constantly having to come up with new ways to be engaging online.
Especially if your business relies on social media as one of its key marketing channels.
So this January, we’ve made the hard work easier for you by coming up with 3 new ways to give your social media a bit of a jolt-start this 2019.
1. Use story-form social posts
We all love stories – and it’s not just up to writers to do them. Some of the best performing social posts of 2018 were ‘live-tweet’ stories, where audiences followed a situation as it unfolded in real time.
Now this might sound complicated. After all, what have you got to tell a story about?
Well, depending on your field, how about these ideas?
- Meeting with a guest for your show/someone that’s going to help your business
- A funny story from filming/recording/shooting/performing
- Something odd (and possibly business unrelated) that happened in your day
- Entertaining conversations
2. Focus on quality rather than quantity
We talked about the ‘white noise’ social media posts in 2018, and we definitely do not want to carry those through to 2019!
Instead of looking at social media as some kind of broadcast opportunity, focus instead on seeing it as an opportunity to hand-pick what you want to show off about yourself/your business/your brand.
In fact, studies have shown that having less content can promote higher engagement in each content piece.
3. Reach out to other people and do some partnerships
We all know that building own brand often includes networking, regardless of your industry. But how about partnering up with someone in order to take your social media to the next level this year?
Working with someone else in your field (or in the wider sphere of your industry) gets their audience in front of yours, and your audience in front of theirs. You could do this as a one-off (perhaps doing short-form video content, or an image series)
Have you got new ways that you’ll be spicing up your social media feeds this year? Let us know in the comments below!
Penguin in the Room @prartsmarketing is a group of creatives with an arts marketing dream: penguin stepping our way into the arts industry and helping other creatives flourish! Specialising in online marketing, social media, branding, copy writing, media coaching and web design for actors, artists, casting directors, agents, production companies, theatre companies and creative individuals.
Contact us any time for penguin chats via email:info@penguinintheroom.com or Facebook.com/penguinintheroom or waddle over to our website: www.penguinintheroom.com
Don’t Let Your Social Media Die this Christmas!
I know what it’s like. Christmas is coming and you’re busy – you’re shopping, visiting family. Having one-too-many glasses of mulled wine. Your work mojo goes down the closer to Turkey Day we get – and sure enough, you’ll find yourself a bit less interested in doing the normal “admin” tasks, like keeping on top of your social media presence.
But it doesn’t have to be hard. If you’re smart, you can clock off on December 24th and not clock back in until January 1st. Whilst still keeping your social media accounts as lively and fresh as ever.
How?
Do Twitter Hashtags Still Matter?
Hashtags tend to be all over the place on Instagram. It’s hashtag city over there. Twitter, on the other hand, seems to be a little bit more reserved. A bit more chill.
But does that mean that hashtags don’t matter on Twitter?
Keeping Your Social Media Alive During Edinburgh Fringe
We know you’re busy – August is nuts for anyone performing. If you’re not touting your show on the Royal Mile, performing or having a well earnt post-performance beer, the last thing on your mind is probably tweeting, updating your Facebook or even (heaven forbid) posting a blog.
Who has time for any of that?
Well…
You do.
Why it’s important to stay active
Edinburgh Fringe creates a lot of its own buzz – people are excited to be there, they’re excited to see new shows and they’re wandering around looking for something new. Even those not at the Fringe will be following what’s going on, whether that’s through something like the BBC or through the Instagram and Facebook posts of their mates who are there.
So this is no time for a social media blackout!
You don’t want to be the person that misses a great reviewer because they’ve tweeted something about having a free slot and you’ve missed it, do you?
No.
So listen up.
What you should be doing
If anything, you need to be more active than usual. Remember, social media is a key tool in your arsenal for promotion. And that means:
- Tweeting stuff about your show (back stage pictures, images of the queue, boomerang videos of the cast/yourself making silly faces – LITERALLY ANYTHING that’s not “hey, come see my show, promise it’s awesome.” – People will see how much fun it is from all the other content you’re posting, you don’t have to labour the point.
- Retweeting literally anything that mentions you/your show/your venue. You want people to know who you are, where you’re performing and when. So if someone gives you a shoutout with a tweet – give them a shoutout right back! Retweeting shows your follower list (and a wider pool of people) just how awesome you are, straight from the audience’s mouth
- Replying to people who are at/coming to the Fringe. Set up some searches on Twitter (here’s one I made earlier, with the location for Pleasance Courtyard) and here’s how where set up an advanced search and get down to replying to people. “Hey, if you’re hanging around [VENUE] come and see [SHOW]! We’re on at 8pm!” is a very basic example of the stuff you can send back.
- Asking one of your mates to take a few shots during your show and live-tweet it (if you’re allowing phones/images, otherwise it’ll encourage other people to succumb to the blue screen of death)
- Chasing reviews. Now if you’ve already had a tonne of reviewers in, then bully for you – but if you haven’t you need to chase. them. down. Tweet them, FB message them, email them, send a darn pidgeon if you have to – but be active in trying to get your reviews coming in. Not only will it help this year, but it’ll stand you in good stead next year when people see your awesome review and think “oh no, I missed [your awesome show], I’ll have to make sure I catch them next year.”
Getting a little help
Now we’re not saying every second of your spare time needs to be spent on Twitter or Facebook. Here are some things you can do:
1. Set up some rules on IFTTT – such as “whenever someone mentions you in a Tweet, send them a thank you as a reply”
2. Schedule some Tweets/Facebook posts using Buffer so that you’re never silent (more on how to do this here)
3. Schedule a blog post to drop in the middle of the Fringe, and then go in and add some news images just before it posts. You might want to write something like “Having an awesome time” or “best night ever so far at the Fringe,” or even “Funniest moments of my Fringe so far” – you’re scheduling it, so you’re going to need to get *cough* creative *cough* with the content, but reason images will add authenticity. You can change this where it says ‘Publish Immediately’ on WordPress, click the arrow and select ‘Schedule’.
All of these things will help you be active on Twitter, Facebook or your blog during what’s going to be a very, very busy month!
Penguin in the Room @prartsmarketing is a group of creatives with an arts marketing dream: penguin stepping our way into the arts industry and helping other creatives flourish! Specialising in online marketing, social media, branding, copy writing, media coaching and web design for actors, artists, casting directors, agents, production companies, theatre companies and creative individuals.
Contact us any time for penguin chats via email:info@penguinintheroom.com or Facebook.com/penguinintheroom or waddle over to our website: www.penguinintheroom.com
5 Things You Need to Know about Facebook Messenger Adverts
Some of you may have already seen the little adverts popping up in between pictures of your friends on Facebook messenger.
Facebook messenger advertising has been around for a while, although dropping them in the middle of conversations is relatively new. Here’s what you need to know:
1. The ads will look similar to the ones you’re used to on Facebook
Adverts in Facebook messenger look nearly the same as the advertisements on the home page. They will have your page name, a short headline, an image, and then a button for people to click. That can take them straight through to ticket sales, album downloads, your website – whatever it is you’re trying to achieve.
Source: Facebook.com
2. You can make them personal
Photo by Christina Morillo on Pexels.com
You can send your advert to anyone that’s interacted with your page before with a personal message, or a series of them. So let’s say for example they’ve watched your videos, followed your page, and now you want to get them to come to your show. You can set up a Facebook Ads campaign that lands straight into the messenger inbox, telling them all about your awesome act.
What’s more, the number of people who click through from messenger is massively bigger than your typical home-page ads.
3. You can make it super specific
Photo by Burst on Pexels.com
The normal Facebook advertisements allow you to narrow down your audience. You don’t want to shout out to 12 year olds and 60 year olds when you know your shows are best for 18-35.
You can also set it up based on location. That means you can target people local in London for your London shows, Dublin for your Dublin shows, and so on.
It gaves you way more freedom than traditional Facebook ads.
4. It’s great for engagement
Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com
Messenger is a taking app, right? And what better way to get to know your audience than by talking to them. When you pop an add into messenger, people are more likely to get talking to you. That’s great if you want to build your audience’s loyalty, or simply get them chatting. Because when they’re chatting to you, chances are they’re also chatting to their friends about you.
And we all know how powerful word of mouth advertising is!
5. There are free courses to help you get started
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Facebook advertising is daunting if you’ve never done it before. It feels like a million steps and you’re never quite sure whether you’ve chosen the right settings, or whether you’re taking a stab in the dark.
Facebook seems to realise this, too. Which is why they’ve got a bunch of free courses that you can take before you embark on any new advertising.
Super helpful if this is your first time using Facebook ads.
Penguin in the Room @prartsmarketing is a group of creatives with an arts marketing dream: penguin stepping our way into the arts industry and helping other creatives flourish! Specialising in online marketing, social media, branding, copy writing, media coaching and web design for actors, artists, casting directors, agents, production companies, theatre companies and creative individuals.
Contact us any time for penguin chats via email:info@penguinintheroom.com or Facebook.com/penguinintheroom or waddle over to our website: www.penguinintheroom.com
When is the Best Time to Blog?
Blogging sometimes feels like you’re just shouting into the void. You write some super awesome content, get some fancy-looking images together, hit publish.
And then nothing happens.
And you wonder, what did I do wrong?
Well, in theory, nothing. But there are two things you need to think about before you hit that tempting, tempting ‘publish’ button and check it off your list.
Is it the best time to blog?
You might be up writing at 2am on a Tuesday morning, but chances are people aren’t reading blogs at 2am. Or if they are, they’re over the other side of the world (and probably not your client base, your audience, or the people you want to reach.)
So you need to think about when to post your blog.
Now, WordPress can do some of this work for you. It has a neat feature in ‘Insights’ that tells you exactly when the best time to blog is. So head on over to ‘Stats’, and then ‘Insights’ at the top and scroll until you see this beauty:
Voila! You have the time and the day you should be posting your blog. So if your current schedule doesn’t match up to this, consider changing it.
The important thing is: check this every week! Because it changes
When is the best time to promote your blog?
Now you’ve sent your blog out at the perfect time of day and maximised all of the chances that people will stumble upon your site, what about the people who already know you exist? Those you have on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, the people you see down the shops?
You need to promote your blog. And that means sharing it on social media.
More than once.
You can set up WordPress to auto-tweet for you, and it can also auto-post to your other channels, but that’s not all.
You want to keep drip-feeding your content.
So once you’ve written something awesome, be prepared to share it once a week for the next 5 or so weeks, providing you’ve got enough tweets/posts in between to cushion that (otherwise it will look like all you’re doing is yelling about your awesome blog post, which most people will then spitefully ignore.)
You can use a tool like audiense to see when your Twitter followers are online and post it at the best time for them too.
Social media is all about good timing. And don’t forget to check out our previous post about social media tools that will make your life easier, because these will help you with the whole timing thing, too.
Penguin in the Room @prartsmarketing is a group of creatives with an arts marketing dream: penguin stepping our way into the arts industry and helping other creatives flourish! Specialising in online marketing, social media, branding, copy writing, media coaching and web design for actors, artists, casting directors, agents, production companies, theatre companies and creative individuals.
Contact us any time for penguin chats via email:info@penguinintheroom.com or Facebook.com/penguinintheroom or waddle over to our website: www.penguinintheroom.com
We had a UK top 10 trending hashtag!!!
Here at Penguin in the Room we LOVE bringing the social to your events. We were delighted to live tweet the Burdett Awards 2018 for our client Burdett Trust for Nursing.
The awards were held on 24th May at the gorgeous Waldorf Hitlon Hotel in London with the super awesome Call the Midwife actress Helen George hosting. The awards were acknowledging and celebrating nurses and nurse led initiatives across the world.
The Burdett Awards had 250 guests at the event and our challenge was to extend the guest-list via social media! We created the hashtag #burdettawards for the event.
The hashtag was including on promotional material on the night and we live-tweeted through out the night and engaged with others who were interacting via our hashtag.
And the results?!
Congrats to our Twitter obsessed Social Media Manager Lucy for such awesome work!
The Penguin in the Room Blog 