Never let it be said we don’t appreciate the value of choice here at 24 fingers (just ask Emma about shoes) but – and we can barely believe we’re about to say this – there are times when having too many options is bad, especially when it comes to using social media platforms for marketing your brand.  

When it comes to advertising your business, it pays to be precise. There are lots of platforms that entrepreneurs can use to showcase their wares or services. However, like butter scraped over too much bread, trying to hit them all can be exhausting and do your bottom line no favours. Instead, try the following: 

Where are your people?

Any small business needs a marketing strategy and underpinning every single part of it is a deep knowledge of your customer. As well as their needs and pain points, you must also know which social media platform they spend their time on. 

If your market is Gen Z, then you should be hitting Instagram with both marketing barrels, because that’s where 73% of them hang out. On the other hand, 78% of baby boomers prefer Facebook. Target your marketing accordingly and you’ll save time, money and reap the sales rewards. 

How’s that content coming along then?

It’s all very well knowing where your ideal customers are if you don’t know what content they’re consuming. Do your younger audience members on Instagram want to wade through a blog post about the latest news in your sector, or will your older, Facebook-loving clients be keen on a funky video backed by a hard house soundtrack?

Alternatively, you can ask for feedback: 

• Look at your metrics to see who is consuming which content and on what platform
• Poll your customers and social media visitors to find out what they want to see/read
• Talk to your customers as they interact with you – direct questions work

Pick your platform carefully

So, you’ve established your ideal customer and found out what they want. Now all you have to do is match it to the appropriate platform – simples. 

One of the best starting points is a social media site you’re either familiar with or have had a positive experience with in the past. Use it as a test bed to try new ideas, then use your customer feedback to see how well this content performs on other outlets. 

A Facebook video could work well on YouTube and Instagram, for example, while a link to a blog post could engage on Linkedin and Twitter. Play around and see what happens. 

Act on your results

The great thing about social media is, even if you’re only operating on one or two platforms, they come with insightful analysis so you can see for yourself what’s happening with your content. 

Use those figures to more accurately target your audiences with content you know they’ll lap up and enjoy, and planning your next ad campaign will be a breeze, because you’ll know exactly where you need to be. 

If you’re still feeling more scattergun than surgical tool, drop us a line and we’ll help sharpen up that focus. 

We’re 24 fingers, a digital marketing agency and a proud member of the 42 Club, Brentwood Chamber of Commerce, Excel Business Networking Group, the Trusted Business Community, the Organisation for Responsible Businesses and the Rotary Club of Brentwood à Becket. We help companies who are all fingers and thumbs with their social media grow their business and brand. Book your free strategy call here.

Tomorrow night, eight o’clock. Stadio Olimpico, Italy. Euro 2020. If you’re not among the millions who will be an inch away from their TV screens, smartphones clutched in their hands ready to post their heart and soul out on social media over 90 agonising minutes, then you’re probably not a football fan. 

Euro 2020 fever has totally gripped us at 24 fingers, and not just because of knights in white Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling getting us into the quarter finals baby. We’ve also been thoroughly enjoying the role social media is playing in the tournament, obvs. 

The good

Chiselled god of sport Cristiano Ronaldo sent social media into total meltdown when he shuffled two bottles of Coca-Cola from under his perfect nose during a press conference and muttered “agua” or water. Proof (as if it were needed) that influencers really do have clout when it comes to marketing.  

Speaking of which, those classy chaps at Specsavers have only gone and pulled off the marketing ad of the tournament. They think it’s all over? It is now… 

You’ve got to see it to believe it…#ENG #ItsComingHome pic.twitter.com/Y8Tfc4so70

— Specsavers (@Specsavers) June 29, 2021

The bad

The Euro 2020 tournament saw fans return to Wembley for the first time since, ooooh, anyone can remember. Of course they were over the moon to be able to support Gareth Southgate’s men in the flesh, but it turns out they were less happy to see – or rather hear – the England Band. 

Their appearance on the Beeb, playing The Great Escape theme tune, sparked a backlash on Twitter, with some even claiming they would rather see vuvzelas back in the stands than hear the band. We’re not sure we’d go THAT far, but it’s a reminder that we should all listen to our customers… 

It is 100% about time that we banned them. Absolutely terrible. The worst thing about England football. Worse than the hope that kills you. Worse than the negative football. Worse than Dier and Henderson.

— Ban the England Band (@Banenglandband) June 29, 2021

The not-so ugly 

Not every sports fan is as athletic as the heroes they follow, so you can understand them not being up to speed with the latest tech and kit. But even we had to chuckle at the social media response to Ukraine’s Artem Dovbyk after he scored the winner against Sweden. 

He stripped off his shirt to reveal a snazzy GPS tracking top, which are quite common in elite sports, as they gather data on the athlete’s movements and suchlike. Lots of fans were baffled by Dovbyk’s choice of undergarment and this was among our favourite reactions: 

Asked to comment on Artem Dovbyk’s sports bra, a @UEFA spokesperson said: “A number of male players wear G-strings too. What’s your point?” pic.twitter.com/ehab7p7Tvs

— ELLIS CASHMORE (@elliscashmore) June 30, 2021

As if all that wasn’t entertaining enough, the lead-up to tomorrow’s game against Ukraine will probably see a whole host of former football stars joining in the social media conversations on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, sharing memories of competitions past and their hopes for tomorrow night. 

Of course we at 24 fingers are crossing our fingers for the England win and will be glued to all our screens tomorrow night. “Sta tornando a casa” or, as we say in Essex: “it’s coming home…”

We’re 24 fingers, a digital marketing agency and a proud member of the 42 Club, Brentwood Chamber of Commerce, Excel Business Networking Group, the Trusted Business Community, the Organisation for Responsible Businesses and the Rotary Club of Brentwood à Becket. We help companies who are all fingers and thumbs with their social media grow their business and brand. Book your free strategy call here.

We love the thrill and buzz of social media here at 24 fingers towers, everyone knows that. But the biggest buzz? Watching a small business owner go from barely understanding what Facebook does to reaping the rewards of a successful ad campaign, or another who, in the real world is quite shy, but strides Instagram like Beyonce when it comes to marketing their product.  Imagine the cheer that went round the office then, after Emma was invited to take part in Reputation’s Transform21 event in June for Europe.

It’s a three-hour, action-packed virtual event that includes keynote speakers from Google and Forrester, followed by breakout sessions hosted by marketing and customer experience leaders – including Emma – answering people’s most pressing questions. 

Whether you’re drowning in data, struggling to turn customer feedback into sales, or managing too many tools, Transform21 aims to gather the biggest pain points and provide insights and actionable takeaways. After all, who doesn’t want to know how their brand is being perceived on social media? (Ed’s note: nobody, that’s who).

“I’m delighted to have been invited to this amazing event,” said Emma, who is a panellist in the ‘How Can I Do More with the Reputation Platform?’ breakout session. Having been a long-term user of social media platform Nuvi, the company has experienced first-hand the benefits of having rich data insights at its (err) fingerstips and I’m looking forward to sharing what we’ve learned along the way.”

Transform21 will be held on Tuesday 8th June from 9:30am-12:30pm. You can register for free here. 

We’re 24 fingers, a digital marketing agency and a proud member of the 42 Club, Brentwood Chamber of Commerce, Excel Business Networking Group, the Trusted Business Community, the Organisation for Responsible Businesses and the Rotary Club of Brentwood à Becket. We help companies who are all fingers and thumbs with their social media grow their business and brand. Book your free strategy call here.

Let’s face it: over the past year, we’ve all had a lot more time on our hands to be scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. And while social media has been fantastic at keeping us all connected during these times when we can’t physically be together, if you’re a brand looking to make a connection with your followers, how often you post on social media in 2021 is key.

The thing is, you need to keep your brand visible on social media. That’s a given. But equally, you don’t want to be the brand equivalent of that annoying person that posts 5,897 photos of their adorable child in 4,783 different poses / outfits / locations* (*delete as applicable…and, erm, author of this post, take note for your own personal social media, please).

So exactly how often should you post on social media in 2021? Here’s how to tread that fine line of both quantity and quality in your social media posting this year:

Consistency is key

Ok, we bang on about this a lot here at 24 fingers. But as with everything that keeps your brand out there, consistency really is key. With this in mind, there is no definite right or wrong answer as to how often you should post on social media in 2021. We’d love to give you a magic formula – that you should be posting X amount of times per day – but the long and the short of it is, posting consistently and at a frequency realistic for you and your business, is what you should be aiming for.

What do we mean by this? Well, you need high-quality content, and you need to be posting as regularly as you can keep up with creating that high-quality content. It’s no good posting every day for a week, and then not posting for three weeks; the algorithm will simply not be your friend if you do that, particularly on Instagram and Facebook. Therefore, if you know that you can keep up with creating and posting three good quality posts a week, stick with that, and post them consistently, every week. Be like water, not fire…

Quality over quantity

Quality really does trump quantity when it comes to how often to post. You could post consistently, every day, for years, but if your posts are poor quality or not relevant to your audience, then you simply won’t build your follower base or engagement. This is especially true during a global pandemic when the world and her husband are shouting for your attention on the digital platforms.

When creating your content therefore, keep your audience in mind. This could be through the use of infographics, your social media tone of voice, and, of course, by using high-quality, relevant images. Perhaps help that engagement along a little bit with the use of polls and by asking questions, or by encouraging your followers to share your content. Even if you only post a few times a week, these actions will help to increase your followers and will keep your followers engaged with what you are posting.

And just to do a u-turn on what we’ve said: hello Stories

Just when we’ve told you that you’re better off posting consistently and well rather than frequently and poorly, we’re about to introduce you to Stories. Particularly popular on Instagram, but increasingly important on LinkedIn and Twitter too, Stories (or Fleets if we’re talking Twitter) really do break the rule book when it comes to how often to post.

The great thing about Stories is that because they only remain visible for 24 hours (unless you add them to your highlights) you can afford to be a little more free and easy with them. They’re perfect for those times when you want to share something in real-time; you could share what goes on behind the scenes in a typical day, for example, or, in the days when we could go to events, share updates from the happenings at said event.

Alternatively, you could use your Stories to share your best tips for your something within your industry, for example. And don’t forget that if your followers tag you, you may be allowed to reshare their posts, too, which is a great way of building engagement.

And when it comes to Stories, more really is more: the more frequently you post to your stories, the more likely you will be to appear at the top of your followers’ feeds, as new content is ‘pushed’ towards the front of feeds, thus increasing your chances that your followers will click on your story to see what you’re up to. So with this in mind, save your wow content for your main posts, but to a certain extent, feel free to share the lesser quality content on your stories. 

Don’t have enough hours in the day or fingers in the team to post consistently? Get in touch

Of course, it’s all very well us saying that you need to post consistently, but we appreciate that this is easier said than done. If you could do with an extra hour (or a hundred) in the day get in touch: our 24 fingers will happily go to work making sure your social media channels are posted to consistently to keep your brand at the forefront of your followers’ feeds. Boom.

We’re 24 fingers, a digital marketing agency and a proud member of the 42 Club, Brentwood Chamber of Commerce, Excel Business Networking Group, the Trusted Business Community, the Organisation for Responsible Businesses and the Rotary Club of Brentwood à Becket. We help companies who are all fingers and thumbs with their social media grow their business and brand. Book your free strategy call here

Last year was… how can we put it politely? Ah yes, a hot mess, what with all the disruption, stress and grief caused by the Covid-19 virus. 

Yet 2020 also saw some big changes in the social media world, whether it was LinkedIn getting with the 21st century programme and discovering video, to Facebook doing its level best to shove Instagram into everything. 

The new year has got off to an equally bumpy start but, like the US President’s desk, we are resolute when it comes to maintaining a positive outlook. With that in mind, here’s what we think will be the top social media trends for 2021: 

Instagram Reels and Searchability

Chances are if Alexa or Siri aren’t a part of your household (other smart speakers are available) then you’ll know someone who can’t remember how they managed without them. 

Voice search is tipped to be one of the biggest social media trends of 2021, so make sure it’s a solid part of your social media marketing strategy. 

Likewise, visual search is set for big things. Customers take a smartphone picture of a product and ask the internet:  “where can I buy this?” Pinterest is one place to be to get the most out of this trend, likewise Instagram, with its shiny shoppable features. 

Sustainability

It’s been a quietly growing trend for several years but sustainability – the business version of being environmentally friendly – will be more important than ever in 2021.

Supply chains were tested to their limits during the pandemic and some businesses turned to local alternatives, in some cases reducing their carbon footprint. As more customers call for eco-friendly items or demand to know more about the origins of products, being able to demonstrate your green credentials through marketing will be a boon to your business. Boom.

Brand Values, Diversity and Inclusivity

Any talk of sustainability is inevitably followed by that of diversity and inclusivity (and not before time!), and we think both will play a big role on LinkedIn.

The professional platform, which gave us Live, Events, Polls and Stories in 2020, will also become a place where business owners can approach, discuss and shed light on important political, social and economic issues.

LinkedIn’s recently added features will be powerful marketing tools in 2021, as business owners, professionals and brands use the platform to demonstrate their values and stand up for important issues. Expect some fireworks – if you’re not already starting them.

Let your customers do the talking 

Remember the days when, if you were really impressed by a product you bought, you told the world and his or her wife? In the 21st century, social media has replaced the garden fence, and user-generated content (UGC) is the new gossip. 

It’s not to be sniffed at either. Ads including UGC have an impressive 400% higher click-through rate than those without, so it’s crucial to get your customers talking about your products and services. We can devise a social media marketing strategy to help make this happen. 

Video content is king 

You don’t have to be Kim Kardashian to woo consumers to your brand, but adding video to as many of your social media posts as possible will keep you bang on a big 2021 trend. 

There’s no shortage of platforms to choose from either: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok and, of course, YouTube – the video world’s your oyster, Rodney. The real trick is making sure you’re posting in places where your audience is watching… 

Let’s get interactive 

Any social media marketing strategy worth its salt includes some sort of interactive content. It’s a great way to engage customers and can be a neat way to find out what they’re thinking or looking for. 

This year didn’t get off to the best start, thanks to yet another lockdown, but it will fuel a need for less passive content. Rack your business brains and come up with quizzes, interactive infographics, or calculators, to entertain that captive audience. 

A sense of social media community 

The vast majority of small and medium business owners are part of at least one social media group. They’re the lockdown version of going to the pub: private places to share success stories, swap ideas and have a general grumble about the general state of the world. But have you ever thought of creating one for your brand? This type of social media community, set to be hugely popular in 2021, is a place where you can engage current and potential customers, launch products and get instant feedback that can help shape and drive your business. 

Check your metrics

Every social media marketing strategy will have results, and analysing that data can be a rollercoaster ride. But are you looking at the right metrics?

Having lots of followers might make you feel feel great, but it may not be a true measure of success. In 2021, a big social media trend will be stepping away from ‘vanity’ metrics and a shift toward a broader range of criteria, including awareness, engagement, conversion and consumer. If it leaves you baffled, drop us a line and we’ll make sense of the chaos. 

So that’s it – our top social media trends for 2021. There’s a lot to get your teeth into so if you don’t know where to start, give us a call and we’ll help you dive right in. 

We’re 24 fingers, a digital marketing agency and a proud member of the 42 Club, Brentwood Chamber of Commerce, Excel Business Networking Group, the Trusted Business Community, the Organisation for Responsible Businesses and the Rotary Club of Brentwood à Becket. We help companies who are all fingers and thumbs with their social media grow their business and brand. Book your free strategy call here.

“Thank God it’s Kerrrissssmaaaas” sang Freddie Mercury, and ho-ho-so say all of us! Yes, we can barely see our keyboards for the tinsel and we’re sweating like there’s no tomorrow in our festive jumpers but hey, after the wringer of a year that was 2020, we’re celebrating. HARD. 

But before the figgy pudding gets cold and Emma leads us all in a rendition of All I Want for Christmas (shove OVER Mariah), let’s take a moment to look back at the past 12 months and the changes for social media in 2020.

LinkedIn, often seen as the Scrooge of the social media world because it refuses to kick up its legs and show its undies, finally embraced the concept of polls. It clearly had to go and lie down for a bit, because it took months for the platform to unveil its next new feature, LinkedIn Stories.

A bit like your granddad trying to bust a move to Eminem after a really heavy Sunday dinner, LinkedIn’s version of everyone else’s here-today-gone-tomorrow videos aims to prove business owners are Real People too. We’ll have to wait and see if it goes all a bit TikTok… 

Facebook was the Bob Cratchit of 2020 (albeit a staggeringly wealthy and well-fed version) working its little socks off. First came Facebook Shops, which allows customised stores to be created on the platform, then it generously rolled out a feature enabling biz owners to create Instagram ads WITHOUT requiring a Facebook page. Why you wouldn’t want the latter is beyond us, but there you go. 

Facebook closed out 2020 by unveiling Vanish Mode, hopping on what must be a creaking bandwagon for video content that automatically deletes itself (also known as ephemeral, which is quite hard to say after four egg nogs). Talk about nicking LinkedIn’s thunder… 

But Facebook was also hard at work (in its fingerless gloves and luxuriously heated data centres) adding new features to the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future, better known as Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. 

Instagram gained a new follower feature , a keyword search AND livestreaming capability while Facebook increasingly played matchmaker by pushing it and Messenger ever closer together… 

Not one to be left out, WhatsApp went from a place to chat, swap images and parents to become madly competitive, to another way for users to buy stuff, with an additional shopping function. 

TikTok, arguably the Mr Fezziwig of social media (also known as Fozzy Bear in the Muppet Christmas Carol, the BEST version of Dickens’ classic), also made a splash this year. Not only did the Chinese-owned platform survive the attention of US President Donald Trump by the skin of its teeth, it also proved to be fairly nifty for businesses. 

While TikTok could be a candidate for Tiny Tim, we bestow that honour on Twitter, which not only began slapping warnings all over Trump’s increasingly deranged posts after he lost to Joe Biden, it also introduced the world to Fleets. They’re another way to post short-form video content, and may well come in handy for venting over Christmas as they last just 24 hours. 

So that’s it – our review of 2020 in social media. All that remains is for all of us at 24 fingers to raise a VDC and wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Gor’ bless us every one!

We’re 24 fingers, a digital marketing agency and a proud member of the Brentwood Chamber of Commerce, Excel Business Networking Group, the Trusted Business Community and the Organisation for Responsible Businesses. If you’re feeling all fingers and thumbs with your online marketing, use our hands (and hearts and minds) to get extra digits on your bottom line. Book your free strategy call here.

Nothing stands still in the social media world for long, that’s part of the reason we love it so much – there’s rarely a dull moment. But, just when you thought the trend of here-today-gone-tomorrow content was done with, along comes Twitter with its oddly named Fleets. 

A squished-up version of ‘fleeting moments’, Fleets last just 24 hours, and are to Twitter what Stories are to LinkedIn and Instagram and, more recently, Vanish mode is to Messenger and Instagram. Or what they all are to Snapchat. 

Confused? Let us explain. The boffins at Twitter wanted to give new or shy users the chance to dip a toe in the platform’s conversational waters, without getting bogged down in likes and retweets. 

With us so far? Jolly good. Now, this is where Fleets come in. Users can post text, or reactions to tweets with the tweet attached, as well as photos and videos, all of which can be personalised with snazzy backgrounds or fonts. 

Here’s where you can go a bit cross-eyed if you don’t pay attention. You can reply to Fleets by sending a private Direct Message, but only if you follow the person you’re contacting and they follow you OR if the person you want to reply to has their Direct Messages set to open.

“We’ve learned that some people feel more comfortable joining conversations on Twitter with this ephemeral format, so what they’re saying lives just for a moment in time,” wrote Joshua Harris, director of design, and Sam Haveson, product manager, in a blog. 

We’ll have to wait and see if Fleets bring a host of new blood to the platform, but the feature certainly has got its work cut out for it with the sudden rush of short-term competition. Tell us which are your favourites and we’ll tell you ours… 

We’re 24 fingers, a digital marketing agency and a proud member of the Brentwood Chamber of Commerce, Excel Business Networking Group, the Trusted Business Community and the Organisation for Responsible Businesses. If you’re feeling all fingers and thumbs with your online marketing, use our hands (and hearts and minds) to get extra digits on your bottom line. Book your free strategy call here.

In October, Egyptian archeologists made headlines around the world after they uncovered more than 100 perfectly preserved ancient sarcophaguses, buried over 2,500 years ago. 

History lovers may be drooling at the discovery, but when it comes to making things that last, social media seems to be heading in the opposite direction. Take Facebook, for instance, and its new Vanish mode.

Developed for its Messenger and Instagram platforms, it allows users to write messages that automatically delete after they have been read and the recipient has left the chat. 

“We designed Vanish mode with safety and choice in mind, so you control your experience,” said Bridget Pujals, Messenger Product Manager, and Manik Singh, Instagram Product Manager. 

The tool, which is scheduled to come to Europe after its US debut, can be activated by swiping up on a smartphone in an existing chat thread. To go back to the original messaging mode, simply swipe up again. 

One feature we particularly like is if anyone takes a screenshot of a chat in Vanish mode, users are automatically notified.  Stalkers, take note.

Messenger and Instagram aren’t the only ones jumping on Snapchat’s here-today-gone-tomorrow concept. Facebook recently enabled WhatsApp messages to disappear after seven days, LinkedIn launched Stories, as it aims to shed its stuffy image, while Twitter’s Fleets, which the platform said “help start conversations” also last for just 24 hours.

Our takeaway: ‘time’ to make your first impression count,

We’re 24 fingers, a digital marketing agency and a proud member of the Brentwood Chamber of Commerce, Excel Business Networking Group, the Trusted Business Community and the Organisation for Responsible Businesses. If you’re feeling all fingers and thumbs with your online marketing, use our hands (and hearts and minds) to get extra digits on your bottom line. Book your free strategy call here.

Hashtags: we’re all so used to seeing them on our social media feeds nowadays that they’ve become a part of our everyday lives. But using them effectively? Now that can be a different story. If you use hashtags to your advantage, not only will you see your posts receiving more likes, you’ll also see your followers grow, too. Now if that’s not something to #love, we don’t know what is.

What is a hashtag?

A hashtag is a word or phrase which is preceded by the hash sign. It’s usually to signify a certain topic or theme, and you’d normally use them in relation to the content or image of your post. Sounds #easy so far, right?

Well, to a certain extent it is: anyone can use hashtags, and it’s a simple and effective tool, but if you have some basic understanding of what you can achieve with hashtag marketing, your posts will perform even better than if you just chuck a few random words with the hash symbol in front of them at the end of your post.

Where should a hashtag be used?

Hashtags are most commonly used on Instagram and Twitter, and more recently on LinkedIn. They’re used less frequently on Facebook, mostly because they aren’t used to search for topics in the same way that they were originally intended for use on Twitter and Instagram. But that’s not to say that  the likes of a campaign hashtag (more on that later) can’t be used on Facebook to lend your campaign an air of consistency and help it to stick in the minds of your followers.

You’d usually pop your hashtags at the end of a post (or if you really want to try to outsmart that Instagram algorithm, in the first comment; get in touch with us if you’d like to hear more on that), but you can also throw one or two into the main body of your caption or tweet too if you wish. This tends to work well if you’re tweeting about a national day, for example #NationalHashtagDay or #SocialMediaDay, or to highlight a certain theme within the main body of a tweet. Just remember not to use too many in your body copy as it can become cluttered and difficult to read if you do.

Don’t forget that you can also use hashtags in your social media bios and in Instagram and Facebook stories, too. You may wish to have your hashtags visible within your stories, but a clean, slick way to increase the reach of your stories is to hide your hashtags to give you beautifully curated yet beautifully searchable content. Get in touch at hello@24fingers.co.uk if you want to know how to hide ’em.

When should a hashtag be used?

Although hashtags can and should be used regardless of what time or day you post, the key to really making a #success of them is all in the timing. For example, posting to your feeds with a relevant hashtag when something is trending is a great way of putting your content at the forefront of people’s feeds.

Remember to review the hashtags you’re using regularly to check whether they’re still relevant to your brand and your followers, to check whether they’ve aged or an event has passed, or whether they’ve simply fallen out of popularity. It’s worth switching some of your hashtags up from time to time just to keep things fresh.

What is a Campaign Hashtag?

If you’re pushing a certain campaign or offer on your social media channels, a campaign hashtag is a great idea. For example, when a certain Essex-based social media agency created a fundraising campaign for a local hospice (ahem, 24fingers), our campaign hashtag of #50Squid4SFH gave consistency across all of the fundraising posts. Similarly, if any of our followers wanted to post to say that they’d donated to our 50 Squid Challenge, by using the #50Squid4SFH hashtag we could follow it and their followers could also use it to find out what the campaign was all about.

Campaign hashtags are also a great way to create User Generated Content (UGC). If a campaign hashtag becomes popular, your followers will start to use your hashtag to attract your attention and with a recognition that their content could be potentially shared to your feed. This equals less work but more content for you. #Winning.

How can I use hashtags to grow my followers?

Hashtags can be a great way to gather likeminded folks and followers around you. Using location-based hashtags is a great place to start, for example #Essex or #BrentwoodEssex. Similarly, if your brand is in a niche market, you’ll be able to find lots of accounts within the same field or industry through hashtags (e.g. #SocialMediaAgency) if you so wish. If you’re using hashtags that are relevant to your field in your posts, others will find you and – holy grail –  follow you. 

Hashtags: #ThingsToRemember 

Ok so a couple of last points (or should that be hashes?) to remember:

#1. There’s some debate as to whether you should use all lowercase in hashtags or uppercase at the start of new words within a hashtag phrase. Neither is incorrect, but it’s worth noting that using uppercase at the start of new words makes it more accessible to those that use screen readers.

#2. You can use a maximum of 30 hashtags on Instagram posts. Use them #wisely.

#3. Invest some time in your analytics. This will help you to channel the right hashtags for your posts and target audience. Rumour has it that Instagram is rolling out a new feature to show post views by hashtag which will be particularly useful going forward; watch this space for more info on that.

#4. Sometimes a comedy hashtag can go a long way: have fun and experiment with your hashtags from time to time.

And finally? If you’re less hashtags and more hash browns, get in touch with 24fingers. We can help your posts to feel #blessed with a little help from our insight into the best use of hashtags for your posts.

The American author Ken H Blanchard famously quipped: “none of us is as smart as all of us”. That’s a sentiment we hold very dear at 24 fingers. Sharing stories of success – and being honest when things didn’t go our way – with others are some of the best ways to generate new ideas and keep us on our entrepreneurial toes. 

Social media has become a force like no other for groups sharing the same passions to exchange information, bounce suggestions off each other and let off a little steam. But what about the people running a social media group – how do they keep things on an even keel and stop it going all Lord of the Flies?

Sit back and enjoy our eight tips on how to run a successful social media group…

Good intentions

Before you even contemplate setting up a Facebook or LinkedIn group, or a Twitter chat, there are several questions you must to ask yourself: most importantly, what is the group FOR? Will it become a massive time-suck? Are you mentally strong enough to cope with the demands of running the group when it goes live? Is there a ROI to be had? What would prompt you to close it? 

When you’ve asked and answered those questions to your satisfaction you can start preparing to set up a group. 

Check out other groups

Chances are you’re already a member of other social media groups, but managing your own is a different kettle of fish, so dig around the sites to get a sense of what models and methods you prefer.

Now’s also an important time to explore groups beyond your own interests to see whether people participate and interact differently, giving you a heads-up on potential future behaviours. 

What’s in a name?

Your group name needs to be appealing as well as applicable to the people it’s aiming to attract – make it snappy and relevant. That extends to any logos or imagery and the group description, so members not only know what they’re getting into, but also so it aligns with your brand. Invest your time in some great design to attract members. 

Invitation etiquette 

It goes without saying members are the lifeblood of any social media group but choosing the right people is paramount. Two major no-nos at this stage are: never add members without asking first, even if you have a good relationship with the person you’re inviting, and never poach members from another group. 

Instead, let your social media do the work. Post invitations across all your pages as well as your e-mailing list as an opt-in choice. 

Laying down the law

Once members are invited and accepted, it’s down to you to make sure they know exactly what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour within the forum.

From the get-go, establish clear and concise guidelines – no spamming or promotions, for example – and inform everyone, either in a pinned post or even a video, what actions or behaviour will lead to someone being removed from the group. 

Roll out the social media red carpet

Everyone loves a warm welcome, and new members should be @tagged and asked to introduce themselves to the group. You can also ask them to post about their area of expertise, or what they aim to get out of joining, but above all, make it clear they’re among friends. 

Keep those chins wagging

A common interest or business may have got your group started but now you’ve got to keep that conversation ball rolling – by any means necessary. Specific daily or weekly themes can be a great way to engage members, encouraging them to post regularly.

Asking questions or posting a short survey can also generate discussion, and don’t be afraid to tap your members if the well of ideas starts to run a little dry. “None of us is as smart as all of us”, and all that. 

Get ‘app’ helping hand

Running a group can be time-intensive but it doesn’t have to gobble up every single moment of your day. There are a slew of apps and technologies that can help you schedule posts, organise events and keep an eye on the group while you’re on the go. 

Still interested but not sure about moving from social media group member to manager? Don’t stress – we at 24 fingers can help you make the leap without missing a step.