There’s no denying that social media came into our lives and completely took over. For both personal and business use, 7 in 10 Americans are on some form of social media platform.

Businesses are turning to social media as their main source of traffic with most solely focusing their marketing efforts on platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. But can you blame them? Just take a look at the numbers.

Facebook has 2.8 billion active users every month.

416 million people are using Pinterest each month.

1 billion people are active on Instagram every month.

That’s a LOT of people and a huge pond to swim in that will only continue to grow, but that just means nailing down your social media marketing game is as important as ever. We know how scary that sounds, which is why we want to give you our top 6 tips to boost your social media marketing game for 2021!

We’re no stranger to Instagram Stories, and we’d venture to guess that you might not be either. Even if you aren’t utilizing Stories in the way that you could, they’ve been around for almost 5 years now, and over 500 million people use them each day. (source) Their popularity is only increasing, regardless of the new takeover by Reels. Stories are, you could say, a classic!

They’re the perfect way to connect with your followers on a more personal level than just a static feed post, or really even an IGTV video. Stories are more real-time, with photos and videos posted having usually been taken right there on the spot. The plus of also being able to see your face and mannerisms and hear your voice gives your audience the opportunity to see the face behind the brand, which can be so essential for small businesses.

They hold a great power for business owners to build relationships and trust with their followers. But sometimes, they almost seem like a strange artform that some have perfected and some haven’t, so that’s why we want to share with you 8 ways to use Stories to boost engagement for your business!

No matter what type of giveaway you end up deciding to try first, the foundations of running a successful giveaway are generally the same. If you follow these eight basic steps, you’ll have a clear control over your giveaway and can potentially reach a lot of new people.

Client and customer testimonials are one of the most crucial pieces of your marketing strategy. The journey you want to take people on to lead them to a sale consists of three main parts:

1. The “Are you in my head?” stage when you relay their pain points to them

2. The “Yeah, that actually would be nice..” stage when you have them envision what their life would be like if those problems weren’t problems

3. The “Okay, I’m ready to buy!” stage when you present the solution as your product or service

But– hold on a minute– hardly any one is just going to be ready to buy after seeing your thing. First they want to know if it will even work, and that’s when you bring in the big guns. (Big guns being testimonials, if that wasn’t clear.)

Testimonials can sometimes be the single defining moment of someone ready to hand their money over, or not. You probably wouldn’t purchase a product on Amazon if it didn't have a single review, would it? We as consumers count on those reviews as the proof of a product being worth the investment or not.

So, what makes your products or services any different? You can use those testimonials strategically in your marketing plan to be the final push that gets someone over the line and to the checkout page or paying their first invoice.

That’s why we’re going to share with you 7 places you should be showcasing client or customer testimonials, if you aren’t already.

We all know that testimonials are a crucial part to a functioning business. Unfortunately, many of us are met with fear and anxiety just from the thought of having to ask clients for testimonials/feedback.

“What if I’m actually not doing a good enough job to warrant a great testimonial?”

Thinking of actually bringing it up to your clients almost makes you want to run away or barf (or both). It can even seem like a super awkward conversation, like you’re saying, “Hey, I know we’ve working together for a while, and I think I’ve been doing a great job, but can you just confirm that by writing a testimonial that will potentially be shared with thousands of people depending on how good it is?”

Okay, so you won’t actually say it that way, but it can seem like it! So today, we’re going to walk you through how you can put this task on autopilot so that you can avoid the testimonial-asking anxiety. Or if you’re just simply the worst at remembering to ask for them, these tips are also for you!

Instagram recently released their new feature, Instagram Reels, and it’s catching like wildfire due to the similarities with its rival, TikTok. The reason TikTok is such an amazing platform for businesses is all thanks to the possibilities you have of organically reaching a large audience, and now Instagram has adopted this capability.

Accounts have been able to grow by the thousands after landing on Instagram’s explore page and gaining views from hundreds of thousands of people (similar to what happens when a TikTok video lands on the For You page). If you tailor your content to catch the attention of the right people, the opportunity to grow on Instagram is higher now more than ever.

But for those people who aren’t experienced with TikTok and the culture that’s now been brought over to Instagram, it can be super difficult determining what kind of content to post, how it works, etc. So, with that, we want to give a breakdown of Instagram Reels, how to use it, and what kind of content to post so you can increase your organic reach!

There are nearly 300 million daily users on Pinterest. That’s 300 million potential customers and clients out there just waiting to scroll upon your content. In fact, 97% of searches on Pinterest are unbranded, which leaves a huge opportunity for your content to show up. But how do you make them stop scrolling to check it out?

Since Pinterest is a visual search engine, you can bet that there are millions of beautifully stunning images already, but images are static, so a great way to catch someone’s eye is by creating a video Pin.

They’ve been around for a while, but their popularity has been rising exponentially in the past couple of years with the amount in 2019 increasing six times what it was in 2018. Even though video Pins are gaining traction, they’re still less used than images, which means there’s a huge opportunity just waiting for you to increase your visibility on the platform.

Another great thing about video Pins is that they automatically start playing when they’re halfway on a user’s screen. In a sea of static images, that’ll immediately catch someone’s eye and, hopefully, entice them to click through to your website. Why else should you create video Pins, though, and how do you create them?

The great thing about having an email list is that it’s yours, and you’re able to market to people who you know are interested in hearing more about you and what your business is up to. It’s amazing for building lasting relationships with your audience, which is the key to making consistent sales and seeing growth.

However, like many aspects of business, there are a few dos and don’ts that are important to remember. Otherwise, it’s super easy to break down your relationships and see a large increase in unsubscribe rates and, ultimately, sales.

That’s why, today, we’ll be going over these do’s and don’ts. Some we’ve experienced ourselves and others we’ve seen firsthand with other businesses. And if you really want to up your email game, stick around till the end!

The Instagram algorithm, A.K.A. this seemingly mythical being that’s confusing the heck out of tons of people. You may see it talked about a lot either by Instagram gurus or in Facebook groups, but one piece of information that seems to get left out is what it is and how it even works.

We’re all aware that a few years ago, Instagram stopped showing posts in users’ home feed by chronological order, so now it almost feels more like a popularity contest. (We miss those simpler times!)

Everyone is scrambling around searching for information on how to beat this beast, so we pulled together a list of our top tips for making Instagram’s algorithm your very best friend.