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Social Media Social Media Marketing

Instagram’s latest Improvements

September 2, 2015
Instagram

Instagram has become a top contender as one of the most popular social media platforms in 2015. Next month marks Instagram’s 5th anniversary since it was first launched in 2010, and in those 5 years has managed to reach 300 million active users per month.

Instagram is a photo sharing social networking service that allows users to share pictures with others. Users have the option to set their profile to private if they don’t want the world to see their pictures, however most users are more than happy to share their pictures with others who have similar interests outside of their circle of friends. Photos can be easily searched by adding descriptive hashtags to each image. Because of this, many businesses have turned to this popular social media platform to reach and engage their audience.

Say Goodbye to Square Images

Recently Instagram has made a few changes to its app that has improved user experience. Last month they announced that they would no longer be restricting posts to square images. You now have the option to post both portrait and landscape images and videos. While square images has been an acceptable Instagram format for years, they realised that people were being cut out of pictures and some images were losing their overall effectiveness due to being cropped. Recently it was possible to use other apps to edit images beforehand by creating a white border, which then allowed users to post landscape images to Instagram, now this is no longer needed, making it even faster to share pictures.

Improvements to Direct Messaging

Instagram has also just announced improvements to the direct messaging feature that allows users to post images directly to specific people, rather than everyone who follows them. Users can now name their groups and share their private images with each other even faster than before. Replying to each other is also easier now as the conversations will be kept in one thread rather than having to create a new message each time.

These simple new changes have been welcomed by the Instagram community, and we look forward to what is install for them in the next 5 years as they continue to grow.

Blogging Content Marketing Social Media Marketing

How to Create Engaging Blog Posts

July 8, 2015
Blogging

Every second there are thousands of blog posts being posted online, so what makes someone engage with a particular post over another? Through all the online noise, you want to make sure your blog gets the attention it deserves. You wrote it for a reason, you want it to be seen. So follow these simple tips and guidelines to make your content stands out from the overcrowded streams.

Create Interesting Content

People are not going to waste their time reading your blog posts if it is not of interest to them. Create content that is useful, educating or entertaining for readers. If your intent is to educate or provide information for others, make sure that you know what you are talking about. Do your research and provide information that is correct.

Keep in mind Quality is always better than Quantity.

Become an Expert in your Field

Research, research, research. Read other people’s blogs on similar topics, learn from them, the more you read, the more you will learn, and this will come across in your writing. Keep up to date with the latest trends and facts. Information is always changing, so by keeping up to date with the latest knowledge allows you to stay ahead of the game, and you can share your knowledge with others through your blog.

Find your writing style

Think about your writing style and how you want to come across to others through your writing. Do you want to write from a professional standpoint? Think about your target audience and what is relevant to them. What is your subject matter, as this will also determine what voice you are trying to have. Think about your approach, are you informing, sharing experiences or creating conversation?

Use Images

Humans are visual creatures. So always add an image or more if you can to draw in readers and encourage them to read what you have written. Find an image that is relevant and of good quality. This helps when you want to add your blog post to social media. Using an image will help your tweet or Facebook post stand out from the rest.

Use Headings

Breaking your content up into sections with headings makes it less overwhelming for readers. If they come to your post and see pages of chunked content they may feel overwhelmed and not read any of it. So break it up into sections with headings. This also allows readers who are pressed for time to scan your post for snippets of information that they are interested in without having to read everything. Or, after scanning your headings they will be more intrigued to read your whole post as they know ahead of time that you will be covering a list of topics that will be of interest to them.

Leave it Overnight

After you have finished writing, leave it a day and then come back and proof read it. If you proof read it and send it straight away you’ll have a higher chance of missing errors. You will find proof reading it a day later is easier to spot mistakes.

Write regularly

Try to write on a regular basis. Think of a realistic schedule and stick to it. If once a week is feasible, then set aside time each week to write, and try to publish to a regular timeline. So if you plan to write one article per week, try to post on the same day of the week each week and at the same time. Once people start following you, they will know when to return back to you to read more. The more confident you become with your writing and subject the easier it will be for you to write more on a regular basis.

Post to Relevant Social Media Platforms

Once you have published your blog, post a link to relevant social media platforms. Twitter is the best platform for nearly any blog post, followed by Facebook. If your blog is relevant for LinkedIn then you can also post it there. If you don’t already have a Google+ account, now is a good time to create one, as anything you post to your Google+ page will rank higher in Google.

Follow these simple tips and your blog posts will have a better change to survive and get the attention you are after.

Image source: Vector Stock