An Inside into the Instagram Algorithm and The Importance of Understanding It

After watching a free tutorial about Instagram and how to get your 'Dream Followers' earlier this week, I realised as the instructor spoke about how to use the Instagram algorithm to get better engagement that I need to be honest, and confess that I really did not know what the algorithm actually was! Yes, of course, I had heard the term many times, but I had no real idea of how it works, and how it can influence my Instagrams account's effectiveness. 

1. The Instagram Algorithm Predicts How Much You Care About a Post

Your Instagram feed isn’t just based on who you follow, it’s also based on who and what you like. Instagram algorithm keeps tabs on posts that you like. The more photos that you double-click, the more signals you give to the Instagram algorithm that you want to see more content like this in the future.

The more the Instagram algorithm thinks you will “like” that post, the higher it will appear in your feed. Therefore it is important to get your followers to double-click on your posts so that you will always appear in their feed.

2. Instagram Algorithm watches engagement with your followers

According to Instagram, the most important engagements for feed ranking are comments, likes, shares and reposts, and for video posts, views, which is especially helpful to know when you are planning your posts, content, and captions.

It is important that you create content that your followers will enjoy engaging with. If you have the ability you should plan what you are going to post each day. Try to plan a week, or even a month in advance. 
Variety is key, you don't want to be posting the same kind of content every day, or your followers will become bored or worse, unfollow you! 

Here are a few suggestions for some more unusual types of posts from your norm.

• Post an inspiring quote - A surprisingly large proportion of successful posts are quotes/memes, so every business should share this kind of content on occasions as a part of their posting strategy.

When I posted this quote on my Instagram feed it received 100 likes and 4 comments.

• Ask a question - These can vary greatly, here are a few ideas:

Is there a household chore you secretly enjoy? If so, which one?

What famous landmark would you love to visit?

Or the one that I have used below:

This should initiate quite a few responses. Something you really need to be hot on is responding to comments, even emoji comments. You could respond with another emoji- If someone shows a sad emoji then you can respond with a hug emoji for example. 

Questions are a fun way to interact with your audience, and a good indicator that people enjoy what you are posting.

Make your posts exciting! 
I have used CANVA to create both of the posts above. This makes them much more visual. You can either post them using a background that you feel is appropriate to the post, or you could start branding your posts so that they all have the same look and feel about them, and ultimately become instantly recognisable as one of your posts! If you are unsure how to go about branding your business, check out Creating Your Brand Image by Zoe Adam- Jones. Through a video tutorial, she shows you how to create your brand image. 

Creating Your Brand & Image - Digital Marketing with Zoe Adam- Jones CBA

Comments are the most valuable form of engagement, as a comment is a tangible indication of a follower or customer's loyalty and commitment to you and your brand. The fact that they spent the time to write a comment means your audience is highly engaged with your content. 

Each share of your posts is like a mini organic advertisement for your content, and it rates very high on the engagement scale and is therefore something you want to encourage. A simple way to get people to share or repost your post is to create a competition. This is something that I am seeing more often on Facebook, and I am sure that Facebook algorithm works in a very similar way?

This is a competition that is being run by one of our local butchers on Facebook. They are asking people to LIKE the post, Leave a COMMENT and to SHARE to their own page, all the things that will generate great algorithm. At the time of me copying this post they had already generated 996 comments and 1.2 shares! I wonder how many new followers they have attracted too!

Some while ago I shared this Instagram Social Plan - One Month of Post Ideas by Fiona Flintham - fionaflintham.com.

If you are struggling to find things to post about, this plan will give you some great pointers - and have you noticed that it's not all about the products that you are selling! 

3. It's all about the timing!

Posts that are more recent are more likely to be pushed to the top of people’s feeds. This means that posting when your audience is online is crucial. How do you know when they are online? Check your insights! For example, looking at my insights, the best time for me to post is between 3pm and midnight as that is when my followers are most active on Instagram - hmm, I seem to do most of mine in the mornings, so I will look to change my timing and see if it's make a difference!

The one thing that I truly love about creating posts like this is getting to learn so much while doing the research! I have started to put some of these ideas into practise over the different social media platforms that I work on and the initial results have been amazing! If you are on the QBN Members Facebook group, you may have seen a post that I shared asking members - 

If you could have a day working with anyone in the balloon industry who would you choose and why?

This post received 27 likes but more importantly 202 comments! The responses have been amazing and I feel that this post has re-connected many of the group's members who may  have been inactive for a while! 

Understanding algorithms is not easy, but getting an idea on how to engage with and grow your followers through exciting and consistent content is definitely a solid step towards making those algorithms work for you! 

Happy Ballooning!

Sue

www.suebowler.com

Follow me on Instagram @suebowler

"Good Design Matters for your Business" - Zoe Adams-Jones Shows You How to Create Fabulous Social Media Posts Using CANVA.

We all want to do a better job with our social media activity. We know how important it is to increase our customer base and to connect with our current customers. However, producing engaging content and having content consistency is not quite so simple.

I am always looking for an easy solution and when it comes to design, Canva is simply perfect! Canva, for those of you who have not used it before, is a graphic-design tool website. It uses a drag-and-drop format and provides access to more than a million photographs, graphics, and fonts. It is used by non-designers as well as professionals. The tools can be used for both web and print media design and graphics. It offers a wide variety of content types that include Facebook and Instagram post templates, posters, brochures, and so much more!

Canva is free. However, you can upgrade for a nominal monthly fee to increase its functionality. Personally, I would start with the free version and then upgrade later if you feel you need the extra functions.

Zoe Adams-Jones

Recently, the wonderful Zoe Adams-Jones, CBA, of Jaz Trading in Queensland, Australia, made a live online tutorial - "Creating Easy Professional Graphics using Canva" - that she shared with the Australian ballooning community and to her followers on Facebook. Zoe has a background in digital marketing and has many years of experience in this field. She very kindly agreed that we could share her tutorial with the readers of the Very Best Balloon Blog.

I had previously "had a go" at using Canva, but because it did not work for me instantly, I gave up. As with anything new, you need to invest just a little bit of time to go through the steps. Zoe's tutorial will guide you through the simple steps of how to use Canva with ease, and within no time you will be producing fabulous marketing materials that you can use across all your social media channels.

I recommend that you open up Canva first (www.Canva.com) click on "Create a Design" and have a little play for a few minutes. Then watch Zoe's tutorial and everything will start to make sense!

How to create a business Facebook page... and a few of the rules that you may not know about!

I have been working on Facebook page's for over 2 years now, but I still get confused about what you can and cannot do on Facebook!

Here are just a few tips on how and why you should create a Business Facebook Page...

Let's start by looking the different Facebook Pages:

Facebook Profile - this is where people ask to be your friend and you have to accept them as a friend.
Profiles (timelines) are for personal, non-commercial use only. They represent individuals and must be held under an individual name. 

Facebook Groups - This is where people ask to join a group.
A Facebook group is a page created for an organization or business to promote activities. Users can join the group and post their thoughts on a wall and interact through discussion threads. 

Facebook Business Pages - this is where people can 'like' a page.
Pages are for professional or official use, and allow an organization, business, celebrity or band to maintain a presence on Facebook. You may only create Facebook Pages to represent real organizations of which you are an authorized representative. 

A business, must use the business Facebook page option, but many people have mistakingly set up a business profile on a personal Facebook profile - you can easily convert your personal account to a business Facebook page, I have added a link here - Facebook Link, this link gives further explanation as to why you should convert your personal account if you are using it to promote your business and how to do it.

I recently felt that I was probably breaking a few Facebook rules with my personal Facebook page, advertising courses and promoting DVD's, so instead of waiting to be told off or even worse having my page removed by those lovely folk at Facebook, I decided to create my own business Facebook Page, still called Sue Bowler as I use my name to trade under. 

Here are my 2 Facebook pages, the first is my personal Facebook profile and the second one is my Business Facebook Page.

This is my personal Facebook profile.

This is my business Facebook Page

So now I am trying to use each of my Facebook accounts correctly, however trying to get my 'friends' to move over and 'like' my new page is a hard task... if I find any great tips or techniques I'll let you know! But I know that I can now successfully run a professional business page as well as a friends page!

I really do not want to make this a long and hard to understand blog, so I'll will just give you a few tips on what you can and cannot do on your Business Facebook Page:

1. Make sure that your business profile photo is professional, use your logo or another picture that people associate with your business.

Here is Coca-Cola's business profile photo -

2. Chose a cover photo that represents your brand and showcases your products or services, it is the first thing people see - again I have use Cola-Colas to give you an idea on a good clear cover photo.

What you can NOT include in your cover photo (these are the Facebook cover guidelines as stated in the Facebook help centre)

• Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
• Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section
• References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
• Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”

Basically the cover image is provided to inspire and connect with your fans. It is not meant for blatant self promotion or hard sales.

Make sure you have legal copyrights to all images and content.

You can Highlight Posts. 

You can set any post to be highlighted which means it will take up both sides of the page.  This feature enables you to bring special attention to a particular post within your timeline.

I had a look around a few of the more prominent business pages and some of use the highlight feature a lot and others don't use it at all? Check out Pepsi's page to see how they use this feature:

 

Pinned Posts.

You can set a post to be pinned to the top of your page (if you look at the Starbucks pinned picture above you will see a little gold pin in the top right corner). Pinned posts will stay on top of your timeline for up to 7 days. If possible, try not to wait the full 7 days before you change out the post unless you have a very important message to share. Chances are you have repeat visitors coming to your page throughout the week. Give them something new and fresh to check out. When I was looking for an example of a 'pinned post', some companies use this feature and other don't, so you will need to work out what will work for you and your business, but everything is worth trying at least once!

I think this is enough to get you started, but if you need any help you can always email me at sue@suebowler.com, I may not know the answer, but I will certainly try and point you in the right direction :)

I am now going to try and work out how PINTEREST works? I have read some great things about it, I have even set up an account and pinned some pictures, but I have no idea what I am doing!!

Happy Ballooning and have a great summer!

Sue

www.suebowler.com