It can be really hard to go through all the digital clutter to find the answers you’re looking for. I’m so glad I started this series on my Instagram Reels to help people in my community over on Instagram. As many of you may already know, one thing I love to repeat over and over is that we do not own the space we have on social platforms. We don’t even pay rent! But what we do own is our websites. We pay for the domains, hosting and the platform it lives on. Having said that, I realized all the digital gold that lives on my social channels and the lack of giving it space on my own website. I hope to update my blog readers with the same tips and tricks, or a bit more trendy, let’s call them hacks. Whether you’re a blogger, influencer or a business. I hope these tips help you to reach your social media goals on Instagram. Tag me in your efforts on social media, I would love to share them!
how to use Instagram for business
Instagram Profile Hack
A big part of your brand image is the way your profile looks at first glance. That first glance is a big deal. It’s your digital first impression to potential customers, companies who may want to work with you and most importantly your audience and community. Have you done an audit for your Instagram profile? A quick Instagram profile hack to remove titles for your highlights, especially if the title are within the highlight cover.
Those dots instead of a highlight title as a filler were so messy! If you’re also using something as a filler title (emoji perhaps?) on your highlights then you can clean that all up with this Instagram profile hack.
Go to emptycharacter.com and under method 1, tap “copy to clipboard”. Go back to Instagram, click on your highlight cover, and now title name, paste what you copied and save. That’s how you leave that area empty.
If you’re on ClubHouse feel free to connect with me above
What’s ClubHouse?
ClubHouse is an audio-based social media app. It’s built itself around exclusivity. I say this, because in order to get on the app you need someone to “let you in” or to send you an invite. I’m sure this will change in the coming months as the app starts to gain more popularity. The company describes itself as “a new type of social product based on voice that allows people everywhere to talk, tell stories, develop ideas, deepen friendships, and meet interesting new people around the world.”
It was created by Paul Davison and Rohan Seth, last year. I’ve read in numerous articles that it is already valued at around $100 million. That was when they had only 1,500 users. Since then it has grown a lot. I was actually in a room where the founders spoke to 500 people about their plans for ClubHouse and how they do plan to grow and open up the app to everyone, but it was a matter of technicalities at this point. They say the conversations are not recorded or stored anywhere. However, I’ve been in rooms where I’ve already started to hear rumors that the conversations are being recorded. But rumors are only rumors until proven. But I would still be careful because the app is in beta mode, there are lots of little things that still need to be creased out.
^What a room looks like
Keywords
Rooms– Think of these as all the types of calls you can add yourself too. You can scroll through what is called the hallway and explore the different rooms that are having live conversations. The titles will give you hints on what the topic is, and there’s a preview of people who are speaking in the room. The speech bubble beside the name means they’re on the speaker floor.
The room is broken up into 3 sections. Once you enter a room you’ll notice at the top are moderators. They have what they call the green bean beside each name. These people are moderating the room. A moderator can allow people who have raised their hand to come up to the stage and then also has the ability to make anyone a moderator. This is what I call and I’ve heard others say the speaking stage.
Then you have the section below the stage for people who are followed by the speakers/moderators. Often I’ve seen moderators send requests to people in this section to come up to the stage to speak. You get a notification saying you have been invited to speak. You can say yes or dismiss. Refresh the room you’re in to see the most current people on the stage by tap and dragging down the screen to refresh. Also known as PTR (Pull to Refresh) on ClubHouse. Some moderators might also say, reset the room. Which means they’ll be adding new people to stage, pushing people back to the audience, and re-doing introductions.
The last section is called audience. This is for everyone who is there to listen. If you have a question you can raise your hand to send a notification to all moderators to bring you up to the stage. However, sometimes moderators turn off hand raising. What I’ve noticed is some moderators will turn it off due to the high volume of hand raising alerts they get (which can mess with the flow of the conversation) or they just want the people on the stage to talk and it’s not meant to be an open discussion but more like a lecture or podcast style room.
When you select to create a room. Open, pick your group, closed or start a room within a club you’re in so everyone in that club gets notified about your room
When you select a title for your room (what draws people into your room and lets them know what the topic of discussion is)
My experience with ClubHouse (so far) and what to expect if you join
Your first couple of weeks inside the app your profile picture comes with a little party hat on the lower corner of your profile image to identify you as a new user to others. I actually “lost” my party hat just a couple of days ago and thought what a perfect time to share my experience with you all. So here’s a quick run down of what it’s like being in the app. It’s super simple and there are very few options to work with once you’re online. Meaning, there is no text format to chat, no images and the basic text are to create a profile description.
Imagine actually walking into a conference call with either hundreds or just a handful of people. These rooms can be created by anyone, but in order to reach a more niche crowd you can search for “clubs” within the app and request to be a part of them. Once you’re a part of that club you can start a room from within the club so everyone who is a member will get notified that you’ve started a room. When you create a room you have options, to keep it locked to specific people or open to anyone. You can also give your room a title (recommended) in order to draw people into the room.
Now I think this is very important to say, there is the good and bad with any social media platform you join. It is what you make of the app for yourself, the boundaries you set with it and who you CHOOSE to connect with on the app. I’ve gone into rooms where you could tell immediately that someone had an agenda. They’re trying to sell something to you. A course that will help you make millions, a service or people who are just trying to increase their klout.
Future of ClubHouse
ClubHouse has launched during a time where people are sitting at home and connecting with others through audio has been uplifting. People find it a safe place to talk about shared interests, networking, business or just general knowledge on so many different subjects. As more people start to enter the app I imagine it’ll get really crowded. I’ve observed that the larger rooms are likely short form conversations and the moderators are usually just talking about themselves. Especially those who are more popular. There have been rooms with celebs like Oprah, Ashton Kutcher, Kevin Hart, Gary Vee and so many others.
Keep in mind the app will show you rooms based on the interests you’ve chosen, who you follow and likely rooms you keep going into. It will take time to find the rooms that fit your needs. Paul Davison, one of the founders, has mentioned there will be a direct message option coming soon in one of his recent new user onboarding rooms. He also mentioned he’d like to see better discovery features, breakout rooms, ways for the audience to engage without speaking (maybe a comments section?).
clubhouse stories
People are learning so much about themselves in conversations with people they would never have spoken too. I’ve been in so many rooms where the moderator could not pronounce any of the diverse names. A moderator was humble enough to admit that he was embarrassed and realized through the ClubHouse app, that he needed more friends who were people of colour.
There are many legitimate dragons’ den style rooms where people are giving their business pitches and entrepreneurs decide whether or not they want to help fund the business idea.
There are so many stories of people speaking on a “virtual stage” for the very first time with their shy shaky voices, and then expressing so much gratitude for the opportunity.
These are the moments of raw realization I think many people like myself will enjoy on the app. The genuine connections, the ability to help lift each other with tips, shared interest conversations, connecting with people around the world you never could before and so much more. It’s an exhausting app for sure. Many times I found myself on it for hours, but at the end to only feel really burnt out. Setting a boundary, time limits and making use of what you learn is key. Just like any other app.
One room I’ve been loving is the adult lullaby room. I haven’t figured out the schedule but it’s a room that opens up late nights and the speakers have already been chosen ahead of time. Everyone on the stage only whispers, to keep a mellow vibe. It’s soft live music and a great way to fall asleep.
For the rooms that are dropping gems of knowledge. Remember to put the knowledge you receive into practice.
*I’ll come back to update this post as I learn more about ClubHouse from using it.
This topic started off as an Instagram stories segment and then I realized very quickly how wordy this would be and I’m so glad I’ve decided to put this into writing. Recently I read about skill stacking, but only to realize I’ve been doing this for years. I actually started doing this when I was 16. Going to school and taking courses was great but the most valuable things I taught myself was actually not in school. It was from picking up books, watching videos and actually practicing what I wanted to master. I haven’t read this book, but the strategy some say derives from a Scott Adams book; How To Fail At Almost Everything and Still Win Big.
Skill stacking: a strategy to build a career. This strategy is to acquire valuable skills.
Skill stacking
Start with combining your skills into a list of roughly 5. Ask yourself what skills will make you more valuable at your current role or that you’ll need for your dream job. The more valuable you are the faster you’ll achieve career success. Exactly when you’ll achieve that success doesn’t matter. Stay focused on the actual skills and staying on track of mastering those skills.
The 5 recommended skills that you should acquire are:
Productivity
Personal effectiveness revolves around productivity. Mastering productivity as a skill will actually help you achieve any other skills. The more productive you are the easier it’ll be for you to master the other skills you need to achieve career success. Also keep in mind productivity differs from person to person and so does the definition of ‘career success’. Stop yourself from comparing your journey to others or your level of being productive vs others.
Communication
Being a good communicator can be very valuable in your career or business. Think about it, if you’re good at communicating promotions, news, important information and the message gets across clearly and concisely, this makes your end goal easier to grasp. You can also work towards this skill by writing more often. Your writing is essentially your thoughts put into words. Some other ways to get better at communication is to be a part of activities that force you to communicate in different ways like improv or toastmasters.
Psychology
I love reading books about psychology. Not the university textbook kind, but the ones that help you understand how people think. Allow you to put yourself in others shoes. You don’t need to be an expert or psychologist, just a basic understanding or enough to understand why people do what they do. Having some knowledge on this will help you respond to certain situations that majority may feel uncomfortable to respond. One of my favourite books is lateral thinking by Edward De Bono. It takes you into some real brain twisting puzzles and gives you a different perspective to think about. This book also teaches you how to switch the way we think. And you start to realize if you are a lateral thinker or know how to switch into that mode. In order to be successful at the work place you need to learn to work well with others. Team work makes the dream work.
Persuasion
The art and science of influencing people in an ethical way. It can be abused by anyone but those who abuse it have a lot to lose once people catch on. This happens a lot in the sales realm of things (sorry) but when I say persuasion, I’m not speaking in that sense. I’m talking about when it’s a win win situation with both parties. When you know that whatever you’re trying to persuade would offer many benefits to the other party. Example, if you know your company that you work for needs a new system in place. Whether it’s hardware or software and in the past you’ve heard it’s been really difficult to get the company to integrate or even agree. Persuading strategically to have them understand the benefits of this integration is what would add value to your career. There are lots of books and workshops you can join to learn how. I don’t have any specific ones to recommend off the top of my head, because it’s been a long time (over a decade) since I last read one. Do a quick search and see what fits best for you.
Personal Finance
This could be a skill that you may or may not have and it’s totally okay to piggy back off of a loved one *cough cough*my husband helps me with this. I do make the effort sometimes to learn what he does to keep our personal finances in the green. Overall, live below your means and don’t spend more than you make. If you absolutely can’t do that then you need to get some side hustles in place. This creates a line of disposable income that you can play with.
As you may know there was a Social Media Week event downtown Toronto. I attended seminars that would either add value to my current Digital Marketing Manager role or the Influencer Marketing industry. Here’s a summary:
FACT: 2.5 Billion people will sign up for social by next year.
When Instagram came out with Instagram Polls, Question/Answer stickers for stories, everyone first used it for fun. More businesses are now catching on that this is a great tool to learn more about your community.
It’s not as easy as just asking a direct question. If you ask the right questions that pertain to a specific marketing strategy, this could lead to successful campaigning. Here’s an example, what if you need to confirm your hypothesis of what you’ve concluded about your communities needs? McDonald’s had an idea that their customers were eating McNuggets in many ways. Whether it was with ice-cream or dipping it in more than one sauce.
They went to Facebook to simply ask their community, “How do you eat your McNuggets?”
McDonald’s took this data and created an entire campaign around all the special ways people eat their Nuggets and then strategically planned a promotion around it.
2020 is the year of Community Engagement
For all those businesses, bloggers, influencers and personalities on social media who said “I don’t have time”. They will be making time in the coming months when they start to realize the shift. No one cares about the likes. Even the images are questionable. It’s really about how you’re connecting with your people. Do your followers actually feel you provide value to their day? What does that value look like? Among all of this, especially for influencers; we need to balance our authenticity to ourselves and our audience. Doing it just to make it? Your community will see right through you. However, if that’s your “thing”, be honest with everyone.
Spend more time having CONVERSATIONS than posting content.
In a nut shell:
1. CREATE your community 2. Identify trends and pain points 3. CREATE content you can both love 4. Analyze the engagement 5. LEARN from the data
Meeting and listening to Superfan speak about his experience with influencer marketing was incredible. This man is so POSITIVE.
“For 40 mins we’re in competition, but before and after the game we are brothers” – Superfan (Referring to Basketball games and if he doesn’t like any NBA teams.)
Think Forward to 2020
Trends that you’ll see come up in 2020 in the realm of Social Media are:
Added Value: There will be more value on digital content and creators will go through a behavioral change. Brands that haven’t been crediting content creators for their work will receive backlash from followers and content creators will stand their ground vs. shying away in fear of not getting more business.
Social Self Care: People are re-balancing their digital lives. Seeking out online optimism and engaging better with wholesome content. Opting out of unhealthy social habits. You’ll also see more brands promoting mindfulness and self care. Telling their followers to take a break from being online and enjoying offline activities.
Bad Influence: Yes, there is such thing as bad influence on social media. If you’re being fake, be ready for people to call you out on it. If your life isn’t so lavish as you make it seem on your pretty little squares, you’ll start to lose your communities interest. People want to relate to you. If they can’t relate to you, they’ll leave. As for businesses, stop trying to sell your products and look at selling the experience attached to owning your products. That’s where marketing has been going for the last 3 years. Experiential marketing isn’t just about events, it’s the story behind your product and what it stands for, how it fits into YOUR life.
Not to leave you hanging, but these were the most important takeaways I had from Social Media Week this year. I hope some of this knowledge helps you in your marketing efforts moving forward. Leave me a comment if something really resonated with you.
Of the many hot topics in Online Marketing, Hafsa from @happilyhafsa and myself discussed ‘Building Your Brand and Influencer Marketing’ on Instagram Live. I’ve been following Hafsa on Instagram for a while now and watching her grow her community (notice how I didn’t say followers) has been exciting to watch. She is a motivational Muslim mom who helps moms feel happy and has created an outstanding business by doing that.
Influencer marketing will continue to grow and where we are now is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much room for it to evolve into the digital age of authentic advertising. Those who will stay on top are definitely those who create REAL content and content that has VALUE. Word of mouth has always come on top before any other marketing. Building that trust with your community, your audience is what makes you an awesome influencer. Keep in mind the emphasis on being authentic. It’s the best feeling ever when I get messages from people telling me they tried what I recommended and they love it. As a viewer/follower, engage and learn. Ask questions. A great influencer/blogger/content creator will try their best to respond to you. Whether it’s a reply in DM, a story or a full on blog post.
HumJK
In case you missed our Instagram live, here’s what we talked about. Not including the side conversations that were extremely entertaining. You snooze, you lose. 😉
Hafsa first started with the mindful glutton. She was sharing recipes, specifically instant pot and talked about her weight loss journey. At the same time when she started talking about mom life and body positivity, her audience resonated with that content a lot more. In Feb 2017 Hafsa and her husband who is a consultant; worked on new branding and HappilyHafsa was born.
She is very clear about what her brand represents. Helping moms, be happy. Hafsa also does blog coaching and makes sure that she coaches those who fit into her niche of happiness.
Video, IGTV and Experiential Marketing is going to be huge for 2019.
HumJK
Let’s talk about a time you discussed a topic and the positive impact it had on someone?
Hafsa did an Instagram Live where she discussed her trip to Toronto after 6 months and she got hammered with comments about her weight gain. It was a challenging experience, and she was told by her husband “no one can make you feel bad about yourself unless you let them”. Months later a viewer contacted Hafsa and told her how that live made a positive impact on her life. This live got 1800+ views and helped so many with being body positive.
Celebrate yourself, regardless of how you look.
HappilyHafsa
For those who are trying to build a brand, what is something they can start doing to determine what their personal brand is?
Your brand needs to be an experience. That includes your brand values, your voice, colours and images. Be clear on what that is and your experience will become consistent and will resonate with your audience.
If you’re struggling with building a presence, get on Instagram stories. Hafsa’s first story she recorded 30 times before she felt comfortable with it.
Things change and the more you practice, the better you’ll get.
HappilyHafsa
Hafsa suggests if you’re not comfortable showing your face then show what you see. Or share your experience, like if you’re walking in the mall. Also, if they turn out to be amazing then add them to your highlights. 4
A community is the foundation to building a brand and being an influencer. What do you recommend people do to create a community?
Hafsa did a research project on Instagram stories. She asked her viewers why they like the bloggers they follow. 70% of the words that were used, pointed to REAL. They love people who express the reality of life. Be real, be yourself and be authentic. People relate to people who are showing the reality of life. Be true to your values.
You don’t have to have everyone like you.
You just need the right people to like you.
HappilyHafsa
For brands who sell products, show behind the scenes. Allow your customers to see how your product came about. Even as an influencer, there’s a huge opportunity on Instagram stories to show the other side of your life outside of your curated content.
When you’re trying to grow and find your niche, focus on your audience vs. your competitors. Focusing on your ideal audience is very important. Do research on hashtags that your audience is using and engage with those people.
Don’t focus on the numbers, your community is what matters.
HumJK
Your community could be like minded individuals who are under the same category as you are. Having a good balance of following those who are in your community, who inspire you and then those who fall under your own personal or brand interests is very important in building your community. Hafsa mentions to have a balance so that you’re not being influenced by your competition to create the same content that they’re creating.
You’re never too big to connect with your audience.
HappilyHafsa
I had so much fun doing this Instagram Live with Hafsa, and I’m positive I didn’t cover everything we talked about. Stay tuned on Instagram for my next IG live and make sure to follow @happilyhafsa.
How can a business prepare for social media fame? Last night I found out that Bogle Seeds Farm is closed forever. This makes me really sad because we had such a great time when we were there. The way I found out was actually a rude comment under my Instagram picture. The person had written something along the lines as “Are you happy now? And a link to a Globe and Mail article. Which you can read here.
How To Prepare For Social Media Fame For Businesses
First of all, that is a very big assumption to make from one picture. Pooling everyone into one bucket without any proof of whether that is my stance of what happened, it is not fair. But I get it, the internet has a lot of trolls out there and being an influencer you have to be ready for it. I deleted the comment because I don’t put up with any kind of negativity on my accounts. I don’t reply to negative comments and leave them on my platforms for people to view and hold that negativity in their minds.
If someone has a problem, the direct messaging or email option is there for them, and I will always reply back. P.S This person had left the same comment on all geotagged images on Instagram from Bogle Seeds Farm. Having said that, I thought about what happened to Bogle Seeds Farm and feel really bad for them. I was actually there with my family on Saturday when everything happened.
We left right away when we noticed it was getting too crazy. And also didn’t stay long to get “the perfect shot”. We took a total of 10 pictures, which out of the 10, 3 pictures came out beautiful. So that should give you an idea of how long we were there. We also didn’t go into the field, to avoid disturbing the flowers. I’ve grown sunflowers in our yard, and have three growing right now, so I know how sensitive they can be.
I had posted in my first image that people were cheating and going through the sidelines and not paying the entrance fee. I also suggested the smaller farm beside Bogle Seeds that was taking donations for ALS as an entrance fee to take pictures. In my comments, I went even further to suggest other places that my followers had suggested. When we had found out the farm was “temporarily closed”. See both posts here:
As a Social Media Marketing professional, I have some suggestions so that this doesn’t happen again to anyone else:
SOCIAL MEDIA: If you are a business opening to the public, have a social media presence so you can keep track of the amount of coverage your business is getting. This will prepare you for busier than normal days. Ex. If you see 3-4 influencers who have posted about your business who have a total reach of 60k following, that should be an alarm that the coming days could get busy. Also, if you cannot create an account, then simply watching geotags will also give you as a business owner some insight. I noticed there were quite a few posts as well on large media outlets about the farm before Saturday. Doing a google search would also give business owners an idea of any websites referencing your business. Social media fame can sneak up on you really fast! Sometimes there is no time to be prepared, but thinking ahead of your social media presence can help for the long term as well.
“Experts predict that by 2018, the number of worldwide smartphone users will exceed 2.5 billion. There is no denying it: much of our lives are now mobile! In fact, the average person spends more than 4 hours per day on a mobile device texting, browsing social media, checking email, and more.” – Forbes Magazine
SELL TICKETS: For locations that are smaller or you have sensitive products, it’s best to sell tickets ahead of time. Even sell them in time slots. Online, or at the door.
MANPOWER AND SIGNAGE: All hands on deck or on standby. When we were at the farm, we walked from one end of the farm to the entrance to get to it. I didn’t see any no trespassing signs, no yellow tape, or fencing to stop people from going into the fields without paying the entrance fee. No people either to give any direction. I understand it can be costly for smaller businesses to organize that, but there are volunteer options and simple signage can help as well.
We can all learn a lot from what happened and going forward even social media etiquette on our ends as bloggers/influencers/photographers. Check out La Petite Noob’s blog post for more information on that. Social Media Fame can come as a surprise to some businesses, especially those who don’t follow along with Marketing trends. Every business has a learning curve, trials, and errors. For a successful business, it’s best to learn from these trials and errors and have great plans set ahead for the future. There are lots of benefits to social fame as well. I can share a post in regards to that for another time.
It’s been a long time since I last wrote something in my marketing/social media series. As some of you know my educational background is in Marketing/Web/Social Media. I’m putting it out there into the universe that my goal is to start these series back up again. I hope these series will help my fellow bloggers, small business owners and those who are just curious with some of my tried, tested and true tips on how to best utilize social media marketing on different platforms.
5 Things All Bloggers Should Do On Twitter [SOCIAL MEDIA]
TWEET YOUR CONTENT This should be an obvious one. Tweet your content and do it on the regular. Twitter is a fast moving platform. So posting repeat tweets (spread them out) is okay to do. Especially since only a percentage of your Twitter followers will see your tweets since it goes down in peoples feeds so quickly.
TWEET YOUR VIDEOS Tweet your videos from snapchat, instagram stories or whatever. Videos get lots of attention and if you can start a conversation over one of your videos than you’re golden. For an example, I shared a short video of my plant that was growing in a not so normal way on Instagram Stories. I used that same video for a tweet to ask my followers what they thought was going on. What happened next was the natural conversation I was looking for. Also an answer because I genuinely wanted to know.
If you have more than one image then go ahead and use it in your tweet. You can add up to 4 images in your tweet and save those characters to tell your story instead of mentions (@humarakausar – is mentioning someone). You can tag the person/brand on the image instead.
I love using Twitter lists to organize groups of people. For an example, making a bloggers list of people on Twitter and then visiting that list to see only blogger tweets can be a lot more easier to engage and keep up with tweets that matter to you. Especially because they go by so quickly.
5. USE TWITTER CARDS
So I just recently learned about this one. You can create tweets with images that look great across different techs, i.e ios, android and desktop. Benefit, no more hours, days or months of no engagement on Twitter. You have no excuse if you have Twitter cards already set up. You can find this under Twitter Ads/Creatives/Cards.
Someone who creates conflict on sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and blogs by posting messages that are particularly controversial or inflammatory with the sole intent of provoking an emotional (read: angry) response from other users. – Google
These social media trolls are lurking everywhere on the web and most are full of anger and jonzing to discourage people from just about anything they love. So according to google’s translation of a social media troll, these trolls create conflict with messages, but the trolls have upgraded to trolling a few more ways.
[Tweet “What is a #socialmedia troll? Here’s how you can catch/deal with these trolls:”]
Types of Social media trolls:
Comment trolls – They leave negative unnecessary comments anywhere they see the option to comment.
Post trolls – These trolls probably have subscribed to your blog just so they can be the first to comment under your post with links to their own websites, viruses etc.
Stalker trolls – They stalk your social media accounts everyday but never like or comment on any of your posts.
How do you catch/deal with trolls?
Don’t feed the comment trolls. On Twitter if someone is being Negative+Sarcastic, then you can reply in a Sarcastic+Funny tone to make light of the situation. If it’s on Instagram just delete their comment (you don’t need to see that comment again) and then do your IG fam a favour and block them.
Why do you post your site links when most commenting platforms allow you to make your name link-able after you’ve commented? It won’t help your SEO situation, so stop. Set yourself up with a spam blocker and a commenting system that allows you to approve the comment before it goes live.
Your like or comment won’t make that person insta-famous. Collectively maybe.I’ll be honest. I’ve seen some blurry IG pics or where the image should have been rotated to be right side up, but I still liked it. But then again I go a little like crazy and go on liking sprees. If you really want to know your stalker trolls, you can try to catch them by putting your account on private and see who sends you a follow request. Chances are your stalker trolls don’t follow you and will now try too. For those who do follow you and don’t like, favourite, re-tweet etc…relax, they either didn’t see your post or it sucks and you need to re-think your approach. Trial and error my friends.
Muting a user on Twitter means their Tweets and Re-tweets will no longer be visible in your home timeline. (They won’t know.)
Thank you Twitter for creating the Mute button. This is a great alternative to un-following someone. So when should you use it?
Ranters/Complainers
Your typical ranter or complainer on twitter is someone who ONLY rants/complains. You can usually tell when you visit their page and all you see is text. No links, no hashtags, no images… As a matter of fact they may be using Twitter as an output to blow off steam. In most cases I would recommend to just un-follow them, but if it’s a friend/family/co-worker then the mute button will do. Also, if the person you follow usually doesn’t rant and all of a sudden your timeline is full of this person tweeting about their recent break-up, muting them until they’re over it may come in handy.
80% Sales 20% Cool Facts
Tempted to name a few but nahh. These accounts are companies selling products or services. Usually they’re newbs to Social Media and they try to get followers by tweeting cool related facts or news. But when they start filling up your timeline with ads and sales pitches then it’s probably best to mute them. You can always head back to their page to scroll through to find the re-tweet worthy tweets. Here are some tips for bloggers on how they can navigate through twitter.
Avoid Live-Tweeters
These tweeters love to tweet about anything live. Truth be told I’m guilty of this as well. But I do consider my followers when live tweeting and spread my tweets out to at least 5-15 min intervals. You can catch a live tweeter before they get crazy and mute them by spotting the hashtag their using. Also great way to avoid a tv/movie spoiler.
Love you, but your tweets suck
It’s simple. Your good friend, co-worker or relative whom you love really sucks at tweeting. They use hashtags that no one uses (full sentence tags), broken web links and tweet about what they ate 4 times a day. So don’t un-follow them which these days translates to “I’m not your friend anymore” or “it’s over”, just mute them and remember to visit their page once in a blue moon. Maybe even reply to a tweet or favourite something.
Contest/Giveaway lovers
There is a known type of twitter user who hunts down for contests and giveaways and tweets them all. Trying to win anything and maybe everything hehe. Which is totally fine! But some people might find it annoying and some informative. I have a few friends who do this to different degrees. I don’t mind at all. For me it’s informative and I try re-tweeting some of those giveaways as well. If you find it getting out of hand, this is a time to use the mute button.
So, have you used the mute button on Twitter? Why did you use it?
RANT ALERT:I have no more space on my android to be downloading anymore apps so I steered away from Snapchat until I transferred over all my images and videos to my laptop. Now there’s another player in the social media world called Periscope and the Social Media Marketer in me must know, what’s this peri stuff all about. After deleting some unnecessary whatsapp images/videos, uninstalling viber and shazam, I’ve installed periscope. (P.S I’m glad I didn’t download Meerkat) With all these new social media platforms emerging, how do you decide which ones to use regularly? I’m going to keep it simple and lay out my pros/cons on how you can decide whether you’re a Periscope, a Snapchat or both platforms user.
Periscope
Periscope is an app where you see events happening in real-time. You’re suppose to experience the event from the broadcasters point of view. However, I can imagine it’ll be used for other reasons as well. Like live Q/A sessions, kind of like google+ live hangouts.
Pros
– LIVE broadcasting
– People viewing your broadcast can ask you questions
– People can like your broadcast as many times as they want (Shown by multiple floating hearts)
– Connected to your Twitter account
– Real time blocking of spammers/pervs/weirdos of all types
– You can save your broadcasts and share on Twitter etc
– You can choose to do public or private broadcasts
Cons
– The more people watching your broadcast and commenting makes it hard for you to keep up with any questions
– Stalkers will love this because they’ll know exactly what you’re doing..right now
– Logging out will be hard especially if you’re a nice person because it’s like having a one way video chat with so many people
– Time consuming
– As many likes as you want means it may not be very accurate in metrics if your mom is liking your broadcast a million times
Snapchat
Snapchat differs from periscope because the snap you just posted is not necessarily happening as it happens when people view it.
Pros
– Not in real-time (so you can delete that selfie you took until you get to your best one and then post another)
– You can create a public story or send snap videos or pictures privately
– Using emoticons, filters, geo-location stamps to make snaps creative and fun
– You build a 24 hour story of your day and can focus on highlights as opposed to one live hour
– You can save videos/pictures
– Viewers can screenshot your snaps and you’ll know who did
– No liking system, just viewers (this could be a con to some people)
Cons – Annoying when people send their public stories to you privately as well
– Glitches in the app can cause your snaps to get deleted before you have a chance to send to story
– Offline saving snaps to load into story later doesn’t always work
