Social Media Management

Tips before posting (Identify what to post)

- As a first step in thinking about your social media content, think about these categories and whether you can create content that falls into either one of them. - Knowing your platforms before you post is also key, as you want to make sure your content looks native or that it fits in seamlessly into the culture. For example, a hotel posting a photo of the beautiful view from a balcony would be seen as content native to Instagram, the hotel posting an ad like you'd see in a Sunday flyer would not be. It's important to reflect on the platform where you plan to post your content. You want to make sure that your posts fit in. When you do share a piece of content, don't just put it out there without context, write why you like it, quote it or ask a question about it, and don't forget to tag the content creators. This shows you know how social media works and that you want to start a conversation. Part of your curated content should also be sharing what your audience is doing or sharing customer generated content. By sharing their content, you show that you're paying attention to your followers and add a little humanity to your brand by showing your brand's greater culture.

Six ideas you should follow to maximize engagement/What makes content go viral?(What makes content go viral)

- Posts should increase social currency - Have a sensory trigger that makes people think of your brand, -Evoke emotion, - Represent a public brand identity - Be practical - Tell a good story about your product.

Example of a business and their purpose (brand purpose)

-Panera Bread, whose Our Beliefs section on their website states that, "We believe in raising, serving, and eating food that is good and good for you." Because of this, Panera can make decisions about elements of their business from their recipes to their suppliers based on their purpose. Customers who want to eat clean, responsibly sourced food will be drawn to Panera.

Example of a brand and its story (what is a brand and why do we need one)

A brand connects through believes it communicates, and draws in customers who share the same beliefs. An example is Tom's footwear, founder Blake Mycoskie grew to love a specific design of shoe when traveling in Argentina, but also found that many children there didn't have footwear at all. He then founded Toms, which donates a pair of shoes for every pair purchased. Those who want to purchase footwear but also want to connect to a bigger story will be drawn to Toms. A brands can help consumers to recognize your product

What is a brand ?(what is a brand and why do we need one)

A brand is the identity and story of a company that makes it stand out from competitors that sell similar products or services

(Brand connection)

A brand is trusted. A brand connects through the beliefs it communicates and draws in customers who share the same beliefs . A good brand is readily recognizable. Creating a brand can foster loyalty that becomes sticky enough that your customers will follow you to new products and innovations. Customers loyal to a brand may also have less pricing sensitivity as well. Finally having a strong brand is a benefit for the internal marketing team.

How can a brand connect with its customers ?(what is a brand and why do we need one)

A business must be deliberate in the brand it wants to create , meaning ... The color pallete it uses, to its voice on social media, to the audience it wants to engage with. But customers will create their own perceptions and judgments as well after interacting with your business. We've all tried out new restaurants, and you've probably gone to one where when you walked in, you knew it had personality. The decor was carefully chosen, the dishes are the chef's unique creations, the menu has a specific typography to it, and you just think that place has a cool vibe. Well, that's an example of deliberate branding,

What does EPIC stand for and the meanings (The EPIC brand framework)

A business's existence is how that business got started, and why the world should pay attention. This includes the business's origin story, and what problem the founders were trying to solve. The purpose of a business is not only what you do, but why you do it, including articulating a set of values for the business. The identity of the business, is the visual look and feel from their logo, to their color palettes, to the images they post on social media, to the typography they've chosen. Finally, connection is how a brand connects with its customers through the written word. This includes picking the right voice for the business.

What is a logo ?(Brand identity)

A logo captures the sense of the brands in one image. logo creation combines all the things we've looked at. Origin story, problem solving, purpose, values, and keywords associated with the brand. And uses those deeper elements to inform the design. A logo must also communicate other aspects of the brands like innovation, tradition or whimsy Curating a color palette for your brand isn't only about having it be readily recognisable to your customer and differentiating from other products. There's a lot of psychology behind color and color choices, and a color palette can set the tone for your brand as well. Red is excitement, blue is trust, orange is fun, brown is natural, and black is prestige.

What is a storyboard ?(Using storyboard to plan our content)

A storyboard is simply a visual outline of your story, sketched across a series of blocks or boxes arranged in order of the story you want to tell. Or A technique that makes story creation easier consider it like a comic strip for your content or a blueprint for what you're going to create

Tip 4 to keep in mind while setting up a profile(Steps to set up social media presence )

After adding your name, profile, and cover photo, you want to add your contact information. Depending on your business, you may want to add your physical address, your website, email, or phone number, and maybe even opening hours. Just add all the information that can help people connect with you. Finally, on many channels, you can add a call-to-action on your profile. A call-to-action or CTA, is a way to highlight what you would like people to do after seeing your profile. A typical call-to-action would be, for instance, shop now or learn more. Here's an example from Terun, the pizza restaurant. They added a button to their page that says "Order Food".

What is auditing content ?(Auditing content)

An audit is simply a detailed list of what content you have and the engagement metrics associated with each piece of content, like how many likes, shares, and comments each piece received. Then you can analyze your numbers, pick out patterns, rate your content, and make data driven plans for your content going forward. Content audits cover all of your content so that is content on your website, your blog, and your social media accounts. Or A content audit is the process of cataloging and analyzing all of the content on a website, including its performance

create a brand that maximizes its publicity(What makes content go viral)

Another good way to go viral is to create a brand that maximizes its publicity. Adidas is an excellent example of that. Its three stripe logo is so ubiquitous that most people immediately recognize it and associated with the brand. It's also easily reproducible from a screen to a shoe to sticker. Try to find a uniquely distinct brand logo and coloration that maximizes your publicity. That way, people will know your product is yours whenever they use or talk about it.

Why should a business create content for social media ?(The role of content in social media )

Because social media is where the people are and where the conversations are happening. And as a business you want to be in the midst of it.

A few tips that can help you create and effective video (The role of video in a post)

Before creating your video, you want to be particularly conscious not only of what goal you're attempting to meet with it, but also what platform you're creating it for. Most social media platforms have the ability to post video. You're able to easily tell a story, but words, but you miss out on any visuals while images provide visual context and a lot more information in one photo they're static. With video, you not only have dialogue, but the movement and actions to go with it Make a tutorial video showing viewers how to use a product or how to make something. You can use video to make a quick explainer video or share some fun facts. Use video as a behind the scenes look or for a virtual tour, for instance, post a video of an interview. You can even post a video simply for entertainment. To create and optimize your video content, the same principles we talked about with creating a photo apply. Make sure your subject matter is clear and easily understood and make you subject the focus of your video. Make sure you have good lighting, natural light works best. If it's not possible, see whether you can add some extra lights to brighten the scene. Sound is important too, try to get highest quality sound possible and you might even consider using an extra microphone. Don't forget to stabilize your camera as well and if necessary, use a tripod. Most people are going to be viewing your video on their phones, so while you might be tempted to shoot in cinematic landscape, you should be shooting in portrait or vertical. Make sure to optimize your content for mobile. In fact, TikTok won't reorient from portrait. Familiarize yourself with platform specs to make sure you're uploading the right dimensions and file size.

what is brand connection ?(Brand connection)

Connection refers to the voice and style your brand adopts in written and verbal communication. Your brand voice is built from understanding your brand story, purpose and values. Also, like the visual design choices earlier, choosing your brands voice will help create unique brand identity and literally and figuratively speak to your audience

What is origin story ?(Brand existence )

Consumers today want to connect to the story behind the business, and you can accomplish that by telling your origin story. An origin story is simply an account of how a business got started. And a great origin story must include a few key elements, the people involved and a problem to solve.

Steps to turn your business into a brand (Brand connection)

Creation story .Describe how your business started , when did it launch ? What problem did you try to solve ? How did you solve that problem now? Clarify your purpose . Hi were ( name of business) Our (type of company) is located in (city or country )ad we provide (type of good or service )were really fond of (list 3 things)and we really care about (list 6 brand values) Create a consistent look and feel It helps to communicate your identity using these elements. First, there is your logo, then the colors that you like to use in your communication - that could be in backgrounds for messages, in choice of interior and design of your store or restaurant, the stationary and so on. And, select a collage of images that you feel represent the identity of your brand. Having these images will help others to create visuals that are aligned. Determine your brand voice

Example of a company and why there defined as a brand (what is a brand and why do we need one)

David Ogilvy, the father of advertising, once defined a brand as the intangible, sum of a product's attributes, its name, packaging and price, its history, its reputation, and the way it's advertised. Ultimately, creating a brand is creating a personality or identity for your business that differentiates you from your competitors in the marketplace.

The epic framework of branding (Brand connection)

Existence - What is it? Why does your business exist and why should people care? What it includes ? An origin story including:who launched the business and when , what problem was trying to be solved ? How did the business solve it? Purpose - What is it? Why your business do what it does ? What it includes ? Finish the sentence " We believe that ..." brainstorm keywords around ideas or topics you care about state what your brand isnt . Identity - What is it? Visual look and feel . What it includes ? Logo , color palette, images , typography . Connection - What is it ? Brand voice in written communication . What it includes? Is your voice serious / funny,formal/casual , respectful /irrelevant , or enthusiastic . Vocabulary, sentence length create a persona to speak .

What is brand existence ?(Brand existence )

Existence focuses on why your business exists. -There's brand value to be found in the reason why a business was created. Not only when in where it was created, but what problem the business was trying to solve and who the people are who created it.

Tip 3 to keep in mind while setting up a profile(Steps to set up social media presence)

Finally, try to be consistent with your name choice across your social media channels. This way, people can easily look for your business on whatever platform they're using. Even if the username isn't exactly the same, think about a common factor across all of your usernames. For instance, the Italian non-profit, Food for Soul uses that name on Facebook and uses @foodforsoul_it on Instagram

Prep work before a post 4 (Anatomy of a social media post)

Finally, which social media platforms do you want to post on, and how will you approach this? Platforms have different requirements for posts, like character limits or video only, and generally have different cultures. While it's a great idea to re-purpose content on multiple platforms, you may need to rewrite or rethink it based on the platform. key elements that make up a great social media post :

What to keep in mind as you select a image for your post(Role of image in a post)

First, let your brands visual identity guide your image choices. Remember how we discussed the visual identity as part of the epic brand framework? This guide on colors and image types that fit your brand can help you when it's time to select the image for a post. For example, a fashion company may want to show visuals of its products. A data company may want to show fun charts and infographics. And a community-based organization may want to show images of people. As we mentioned in our last video, stories are a powerful way to get your message across and images are great to support your story. For instance, if you're posting about summer camp for kids and how great your camps are to help kids unwind and make new connections. You can support your story with a picture that really captures the essence of that story. To do that, you want to make sure that your photo is going to communicate a clear story and is easy to understand. For example, don't choose a sweeping shot of the campsite with dozens of people in the photo. There would be too much going on, and the viewer may scroll by, or if they stop, they may not understand the story. Instead, choose a photo of a few friends roasting marshmallows around the campfire. It simple, individual and it tells the story.

Engaging social media content typically falls into either one of three categories(Identify what to post)

First, posts that are educational, that teach, update or inform. Second, posts that are inspirational and feel good, or that move people to act. Third, posts that are fun and entertaining and that present a brand in human and spirited way.

What 5 elements does your profile consist of ?(Steps to set up social media presence)

First, there's an account name, or sometimes called a username. . Second, a profile picture, and sometimes also a cover photo. like them to do next. That could be shop, make a reservation, get more information, and so on. Then there's the business contact information, the website, physical address, hours of operation, and email or phone number. Fourth, there's typically a description of what the business or the brand does or offers. Finally, many profiles will have a call-to-action; a button or a sentence that lets people know what the business would like them to do next. That could be shop, make a reservation, get more information, and so on.

Prep work before a post 1 (Anatomy of a social media post)

First, we need to have a solid understanding of our brand. Knowing your brand's values, identity, and voice, will help you determine what kind of content you want to create, that will align with your brand. Make sure that your business has done the work of establishing its brand first, and our previous lesson on branding can help you with that.

Creating a content calendar for carlos at Inu and Neko :(Creating a content calendar)

First, we want to think about the goals we have for our social media content. As we articulated in the past lessons, our content provides value for our audience. And in connecting and helping them, we increase our brand awareness and trust. Open up a new spreadsheet, before we start laying out a calendar, lets designate one of the sheets as content ideas. We know right from the start that we want informational content, inspirational content, and fun/entertaining content. But you also want to remember to include content that tells our audience about our services and any events we may have coming up. Content related directly to our business that we want our audience to know about. For informational, let's be sure to share some of our recent blog posts on pet care and grooming. We can and should also share content created by others that we find useful. Carlos bookmarked a few articles on how grooming is directly related to pet health and can share those with his audience.

create posts or ads that will increase people's social currency(What makes content go viral)

First, you should create posts or ads that will increase people's social currency when they share them. Most people on social media want to seem smart, cultured and ethical. You should give them content that helps them do that. They may be more inclined to share that content because it makes them look good.EX: (Take Toms shoes as an example. In 2014, Toms launched a successful advertising campaign in which they promised to donate one pair of shoes for every pair a customer bought. Because of that, being seen wearing Tom's signaled to people that you were an ethical and conscious consumer. Wearing them increased the buyers social currency and people flooded Facebook and Instagram with pictures of themselves wearing Toms as the company achieved the marketer's dream, having other people advertise your product for free.)

A few tips that can help you create and effective video(The role of video in a post)

Front load your video and try to catch attention in the first five seconds. This holds true for any storytelling, but the goal is to catch viewers attention and make them stop scrolling and since most videos on social media platforms autoplay, you want to catch their attention quickly, add some movement and jump right into the story. Depending on the platforms, video length limits, you may not have time to spare, 65 percent of viewers who have their attention captures in the first three seconds will continue watching. Front load your video and try to catch attention in the first five seconds. This holds true for any storytelling, but the goal is to catch viewers attention and make them stop scrolling and since most videos on social media platforms autoplay, you want to catch their attention quickly, add some movement and jump right into the story. Depending on the platforms, video length limits, you may not have time to spare, 65 percent of viewers who have their attention captures in the first three seconds will continue watching.

And if your stuck for ideas and curated content isn't enough ?(Identify what to post)

Go back to some old blog posts or articles and repromote them. Have a report that your business generated last year, pull out some nuggets and create content around them. You can even share content across other channels you didn't share to in the first place.

Tell your audience about the problem you were looking to solve and how this new product solved that problem.(Topics to post about)

Here's an example from Skullcandy introducing new wireless headphones, or this example from Volkswagen, introducing a concept for a new electric car. Use some humor and levity in your posts to engage your audience and get them smiling. Employ some witty banter with other businesses as well to show that your brand knows how to have a little fun and take a joke.

Example of a business content from their website (Topics to post about)

Here's an example from the Harvard Business Review. They published an article focused on applying for jobs in which they highlight that you don't need to meet all the qualifications asked for, before you apply for a job. They posted this highlight on LinkedIn. Great advice by the way.

Benefits of a storyboard (Creating a storyboard)

I allows you to brainstorm and think of good ideas before you commit them to video If something's not working, or if you need to rearrange sections, you can do so easily You're committing to creating deliberate, thoughtful, well-put-together work that your audience will notice Storyboarding is also a way to capture tiny elements you may forget when posting on the fly, like stickers you want to add hashtags, location tags, mentions, and others. If you need to pitch social media stories to a marketing director or editor, it's also a great way to show them visually what you're thinking about

What is identity ?(Brand identity)

Identity refers to the visual look and feel of the brand. This includes the logo, the color palettes the business chooses. The aesthetic of the images to business uses, and even the typography they choose.

Whats the difference between a brand and a business (Brand connection)

If a business is a product—creation mechanism, a brand is how your business makes people feel. A brand is A combination of elements or attributes associated with a business that make up an experience about that business: Products and services Feeling at a location Words they use Principles or the values Connection Logo , colors ,and images The stories they tell

What is curating content?(Identify what to post)

If we're suppose to post at least once a day or more, depending on the platform, where are we supposed to come up with all that content? Well, the good news is that you don't have to create new unique content for each one of your posts. Much of your content can and should be curated from other people. Curating content created by other people that you can share with your audience is an important part of your content strategy. This can be articles, news updates, stories, videos, infographics, really anything, and it can come from websites, other social media accounts, or users. There are a few reasons why you should share curated content

What is imagery? (Brand identity)

Imagery is another aspect of creating a brands visual identity. And this can include the types of photos, visuals or illustrations a brand users on its website or in social media feeds. This will not only evoke a feeling, but create a kind of ecosystem for that brand. For example, Airbnb, the business that connects renters with guests, showcases beautiful photography of locations on its social media feed. Instead of advertising cheap rental rates there featuring the beauty and uniqueness of locations around the world, which will then inspire you to book a trip through them.

Examples of different ways to change your captions on different platforms :(Re purposing content)

In each of these situations, you can also tweak your caption for each platform to appeal to that platform's audience. For LinkedIn, it could be how to create a website for your business. For Instagram, it could be how to create a website for your creative portfolio

What is a content calendar ?(Using a content calendar)

Is simply a calendar where you fill in upcoming events for your social media platforms, when they're going to be posted, and where.

Tips for content calendar :(Using a content calendar)

It's a great idea to note ideas in your calendar somewhere, so that you keep everything in one place and anyone in your team that has access to your calendar can add to it as well. We can fill in as much content as we want, but we need to be sure that we'll be able to create and post all of that content. We also need to make sure that we are posting frequently and consistently to each social media platform. So that our audience continues to see our presence and can anticipate new content from us on a regular basis. Studies show that a business should post once a day on Facebook, 15 times per day on Twitter, 11 times per day on Pinterest, and once or twice per day on Instagram.

Tips for posting on Instagram (Anatomy of a Instagram post)

Let's create a post, but first, we'll think back to our prep work. What goals do we want to achieve with our post? What kind of posts do we want to create? In this case, I want to create a post that will help James introduce Snackwall to customers so he can start to generate some awareness. You cannot schedule your posts with the Instagram app.

How does re purposing content work?(Re purposing content)

Let's say you've written a blog post about the state of social media engagement today in your industry and you share that with your audience. Is that it, move on to the next blog post? That's what you might think, but there's still a lot more mileage you can get out of that post. For instance, take some of the stats you found and create an infographic, or a series of tweets, or pull a quote and make an image, turn the contents into a presentation or an informative video. If your post has great insights, update the data in the future, and share it all over again.

Tip 1 to keep in mind while setting up a profile (Steps to set up social media presence)

Let's start with the account name. Typically, it's one of the first things people see when they encounter your business online. It's important to choose an account name that is memorable and can easily be recognized. Take Barilla, for instance, it's a brand of pasta and they use their brand name for their Instagram account. It's how people know them and recognize them. When choosing an account name, it can help to add a keyword that describes what you do. Including such a keyword allows for your business to pop-up irrelevant searches. Think about what people will search for when they're looking for products similar to what you offer, and consider adding a keyword to reflect that. For instance, the bakery Le Marais uses @LeMaraisBakery on Twitter and Instagram. Adding Bakery makes it clear what the business offers, and it makes it possible for Le Marais to show up in searches for bakeries.

Example of a business content from their website (Topics to post about)

Microsoft Teams. They wrote a blog post on how you can use background effects in online team meetings, and they tweeted about it in this post

What to keep in mind as you select a image for your post (Role of image in a post)

Next, we want to make sure that we have good light. If at all possible, use natural light for your photograph. Photographers call the time around sunrise and sunset, the golden hour because the light then is softer and more angled, giving you better light and shadow contrast. Also make sure your exposure is balanced by tapping on your screen as you're lining up your photo. Tapping on dark areas will cause the photo to lighten and tapping on light areas will cause the photo to darken. Also include lead lines or lines in the photograph that draw the eye towards the subject and to tell the viewer what to look at. It can be as simple as a path leading to a subject, lines on a tablecloth or an inserted arrow. Finally, don't forget to add some alt-text for your photos, which is simply a description of what's in the photo for anyone who may be visually impaired

Prep work before a post 3 (Anatomy of a social media post)

Next, who's your target audience? You should know your target audience already. So ask yourself, who's the audience for your post?

Can you just repurpose every piece of content?(Re purposing content)

Not quite. There are a few types of content that you should look to first, as you begin to repurpose.

What type of content should you not repurpose ?(Re purposing content)

Opposite of evergreen, is timely or time stamped content, or content that responded to a trend or a news cycle, like a guide to new tech in 2015, or new movies in 2018, which would now be outdated, of course. Because the content is no longer relevant, you would stay away from these pieces and look to your more relevant content for sources.

What two types of content's are there (Identify what to post)

Organic content & paid content

Creating a content calendar for carlos at Inu and Neko :(Creating a content calendar)

Our content calendar is going to go into the summer. So we want to be sure to share an article or two on how pet grooming changes in warmer weather. For inspirational content, we can tell stories from our community, how one of our clients rescued a cat, or share photos or videos from community members bringing their pets to visit a nursing home. ( ideas)Fun, entertaining videos are easy as Carlos' clients' pets are always showboating for the camera. As for content centering around our business, we can post about our services, any discounts or new offerings we have, promotions or updates to our mobile app. Are there any campaigns, series, or hashtags we can use? One of Carlos' customers suggested he do a Throwback Thursday series of members from the Inu and Neko community as kids with their first pets. Another hashtag is Motivational Monday, which could be easy to put together. Maybe we want to ask a nightly question to get our followers to respond and engage as well.

practical(What makes content go viral)

People like to share content that's practical or immediately useful. Valentina Lord created this video with a hack for peeling garlic and posted it on Twitter. The video went viral and received over 24 million views. The plain practical nature of this and the fact that this peeling garlic trick is universally useful, made it something people wanted to share.

What else can you include in a social media post besides a image (Role of image post)

Pictures aren't the only images you'll find included in social media posts. Infographics, charts, graphics, images with text on them, cartoons. They all serve a purpose in catching someone's eye and function as unique content that represents the brand.

What is brand purpose ?(Brand purpose)

Purpose goes beyond the origin story to explore why a business does what it does. Every business is built on a foundation of values and meaning - By clearly stating your business' purpose, values, and what you stand for, you're not only further connecting with your audience, but you're further defining your audience, people who align with your vision.

Tips for posting on Facebook (Anatomy of a Facebook post)

Ready to post, before you do, you have the option to boost your post? Boosting a post turns your post into an ad that will get shown to an audience outside of your followers. When you select Boost Post and click Post, you'll have a menu of options to specify including who you want your audience to be, your budget, and the duration of your ad. Don't worry if you don't choose to boost your post now, you can always go back and boost it later. Now you're ready to post, click Post or you may decide to post later. Facebook also allows for scheduling your posts, which is available under your businesses publishing tools section. This allows you to create content well in advance and schedule it to target specific dates like holiday or the day of an event.

Benefits of re purposing content (Re purposing content)

Repurposed content acts as an amplifier for your brand. Repurposed content gives you more social media posts. it stretches the value of your content. You spend too much time researching and writing a blog post, article or white paper only to share it a few times and move on. What you're trying to share isn't a package of your article or paper, but the ideas inside. Repurposing content also gives you Search Engine Optimization advantages. Since repurposed content contains the same keywords, you'll increase your brand's association with those keywords in search, increasing the probability that your content will come up in search results for those keywords.

What is re purposing content ?(Re purposing content)

Repurposing content is simply the idea that no piece of content is ever, "One and done." Your content is full of ideas, stories, stats, and information that can be presented again in different formats, which can appeal to new audiences and expand your reach. Repurposing content is not only a way to stretch out the value of your content, but it's an easy way to fill in your social media content calendar as well. Or is the practice of reusing all or elements of existing content in order to expand that content's reach. Repurposed content is typically transformed into a new format (for example, turning a blog post into an infographic).

Prep work before a post 2 (Anatomy of a social media post)

Second, we need to establish some goals for our social media posts. Even though it may just be a one-off post, any piece of content is always part of a greater strategy. Do you want to let people know about a new product? Do you want to get followers to sign up for a newsletter? Do you want to educate your followers about something in your industry? Even a simple posts that comments on an event or something in pop culture, is still working to engage your audience, and raise awareness for your brand. Ideally, you've written down the SMART goal for your campaign. That means a goal that is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound

create a trigger for your product.(What makes content go viral)

Second, you should try to create a trigger for your product. This is something that makes people immediately think of your product when they see, hear, smell, or touch it. One of the most successful examples of a trigger in advertising history isEX:( Nike's slogan, Just Do it. When most people across the planet hear Just do it, they think of Nike. Other famous triggers includes a line, Do You Know Where Your Children Are? from New York City Public Safety Campaign. Budweiser's Whassup? line, which signaled that drinking Bud meant it was time to relax. )

Tips for curated content(Identify what to post)

Set Google Alerts to flag you for content, or use a curation app like Feedly or Pocket to gather different articles and posts you want to share.

Example of a business and its brand connection (Brand connecton)

Skittles, the candy. Here's their website and here's a screenshot of their Instagram account. Skittles brand tone of voice is kind of out there. They are funny and quirky in an almost absurd way. Here is how I would describe their tone of voice in our brand spectrum. I'd say they're funny, very casual, definitely irreverent and very enthusiastic. So you can see how brands can really differ in how they communicate and connect.

Do your behind the scenes video on live.(Topics to post about)

SpaceX, for instance, will often give you a glimpse behind the scenes on their Instagram account.

How to create a origin story (Brand existence )

Starting with the first piece of our framework, existence, let's put together an origin story. We want to focus on three things. Who launched the business and when? What problem was trying to be solved? And how did the business solve it? ( After talking with Imra and finding out a bit about her history and why she created the business, we come up with this. Imra always loved flowers, and as a child would pick them on hikes with her parents and braid them into crowns. But after graduating art school with a degree in design, she was disappointed to see the same bland kind of bouquets being made without any kind of artistic passion or unique design to them. So in 2010, Imra began her own flower shop called Calla & Ivy. In order to offer the unique handcrafted design forward bouquets she knew could bring joy and inspiration to people around her. After a short time, Imra's shop became so popular that she expanded her presence online where customers can order her bouquets digitally and also subscribe for regular flower deliveries. And while her store still exists, Imra uses it to experiment with new ideas. )

Why should you use a storyboard/benefit(Using storyboard to plan our content)

Storyboarding is going to be a great tool as you plan out your video content. So you can see which shots to set-up, which camera angles to use, and how to create your story arc. Storyboards are also useful for something like Instagram or Facebook stories, where you can string multiple videos or images together into a narrative arc.

Key elements that make up a great social media post (Anatomy of a social media post)

Text is probably going to be a necessary and important piece of your social media post. It'll be how you tell your origin story, how you talk about your new product, how you state your values, how you respond to a follower, or how you make a call to action. and are also a great way to create brand awareness by showing off some of the brands visual identity, like a logo or color palette . A social media post often contains hashtags, which are words or phrases proceeded by a hashtag that associate posts to specific subject matter categories, so that the post is easily findable within that hashtag category. You might also use a mention, which is a user's name proceeded by an at that tags them in a post, or lets them know you've mentioned them. A great use of social media is a call to action, which usually consists of pointing followers toward content on your website, like a product page, a blog post or an article.

The epic framework of branding (Brand connection)

The EPIC Framework is a process that you can use to turn a business into a brand. Step-by-step, it means making sure people know why your brand exists, what its purpose is, its visual identity, and the connection you make with customers via written communication.

Ways to compose your image so it will look professional and eye catching(Role of image in a post)

The first technique is to use the rule of thirds. The rule of thirds is simply the idea that if you break up your image into thirds, horizontally and vertically, your subject should be placed at the intersection of one of the grid lines, not directly centered. Similarly, if you're taking a shot of a landscape, you either want to have 2/3 land in 1/3 sky or 2/3 sky, 1/3 land. Having the subject slightly off from center actually makes it more noticeable and is more appealing visually for our eyes.

Creating imra's storyboard to plan out for her new story in 7 steps (Creating a storyboard)

The first thing to determine when starting to storyboard is our engagement goal for our social media post. Do we want to educate our audience? Do we want to increase traffic to our website, or do we want to make a sale? Also, what story are we going to tell? So for this storyboard, we're going to have education, inspiration, and purchase in mind. For our story, we're going to show how Imra creates a flower bouquet. There are tools and apps out there, but for our storyboard, we're going to use a plain sheet of paper. Let's make our boxes or panels. Since we're designing for Instagram stories, we'll make our panels rectangular to mimic the phone screen. Since we want to tell a story here, let's title our boxes with steps we want to include from choosing a flower color scheme to arranging and wrapping up the stems. Imra typically starts her process by deciding on a color scheme for her bouquet. Then she reflects on what's in season. Then she goes to the flower markets, and examines the selection, and chooses the flowers that will work for her bouquet. She then cuts the stems just right, arranges them in a bouquet, adds a few more stems for effect, and then she wraps up the stems.

What type of content should you repurpose ?(Re purposing content)

The first type of content that you should target when repurposing, is evergreen content or content that is useful, interesting, and impactful year after year. It could be; a how to guide, a report, or an overview of a certain topic or industry. This kind of content is always relevant to your audience, so it's a great place to mine ideas for repurposing. Second, seek out your most popular content by taking a look at your engagement analytics. Because an audience interacted with it before, is a good indicator they would interact with that content again or that they are at least interested in the topic. Find your social media posts that did well, the ones that got lots of likes and comments, for instance and think about how you can repurpose them.

What is the goal of branding ?(what is a brand and why do we need one)

The goal of branding is to earn space in the minds of the target audience and become their preferred option for doing business.

what is paid content?(Identify what to post)

The other kind of content is paid content, like an ad or a paid sponsorship. This type of content can specifically target certain demographics and will appear in users feeds who meet your criteria.Page posts can help leverage the work you've done through organic interactions, but for social media, which is based on social interactions, having only paid content might not be the right approach.

Example of a business and its origin story (Brand existence )

The story begins in 1995, Doug Zell and Emily Munch just wanted fresh roasted coffee, it was really that simple. After moving from San Francisco to Chicago, they found that great tasting coffee in their new city was surprisingly elusive. But instead of complaining or even worse, settling for bad coffee, they hunker down and wrote the original business plan or what would become intelligentsia coffee. Let's look at some of the elements of this origin story. First, the founders Doug and Emily are named, so immediately we have a connection to real people. Second Doug and Emily encountered a problem, they couldn't find a good coffee in Chicago. Third, they went about solving the problem. Instead of settling, they created Intelligentsia to solve the problem they had. You may say that that's great and it's cool to hear about their story, but how does it help create a brand? Because storytelling has the ability to create connections in a way simple facts can't. If a business can get storytelling right, they have a huge advantage over their competition. Because we as humans are wired for stories, we love hearing stories, we love telling stories. We use stories for entertainment or for teaching, and we become emotionally attached to stories.

How does a brand articulate a purpose ?(Brand purpose)

There are a few different ways. Many businesses use the prompt of, "We believe that," so if you're trying to create a purpose for your brand, jot down some ways to complete that sentence. Brainstorm keywords around the ideas or topics you care about, like clean eating, wellness, or even good design. Another way to articulate a purpose for your business is to state what your brand isn't and what you don't stand for, which can help you articulate what you do stand for.

What is the EPIC brand framework ?(The EPIC brand framework)

There are four areas where a business can build their unique brand; existence, purpose, identity, and connection. Together they make the EPIC framework. This framework was developed by brand expert at Facebook. Facebook uses it, to help its clients develop strong brands and prepare them for their social media presence.

Should your brand voice be authoritative and confident, friendly and personal, fun and quirky? Would your brand suggest you peruse its website or check it out? Would your brand use short, pithy sentences or long, more stylistic sentences? It comes down to what will resonate with your audience, but how do you know what's going to resonate with your audience?(Brand connection)

This is where creating a persona for your business comes in handy. Instead of thinking about their audience as a demographic, many businesses create a persona or an example customer. So they can think about one person when they're creating content .

Share curated content like articles, blog posts, and other valuable content that other businesses, organizations, and thought leaders in your industry have shared.(Topics to post about)

This not only shows you're paying attention to your industry, but by being a source of information, it positions you as an authority, can also expand your audience and you can build relationships with the businesses whose content you shared. Here's an example, a tweet from Raven Book Store referencing an article from audio books company, libro.fm, about Audible from Amazon. Another example on LinkedIn a post from OpenX, an advertising technology company referencing research from the IAB. Similarly, be sure to share customer generated content as well.

Create content around a popular hashtag like Throwback(Topics to post about)

Thursday or Motivational Monday, which are hashtags and content people look for and expect. Having a Throwback Thursday post can also provide your audience a fun look into the past of your business or your organization.

Tips for brand connection (Brand connection)

To personify the audience, helps to have everyone in the company imagine the same person when they're working on marketing. And it helps to give you a persona a name, and a face. You can add a picture of what your persona might look like. Once we have a persona, it's easier to define our tone of voice.

A few tips that can help you create and effective video(The role of video in a post)

While autoplay can be a great thing to catch an audience's attention, as there is no added step to pick a video and press play. Autoplayed videos are often played with the sound off. This means that it's even more important to rely on the strength of your visual storytelling. As you're creating a video, consider shooting it so that it's understandable without sound. One way to think of this is to plan for sound off and delight with sound on. Work around no sounds by adding text or subtitles, viewers can still read the dialogue or voice over if the video is on mute Texts can also give an added emphasis along with voice over or dialogue. Like adding alt text for images, it's good to add dialogue for anyone who might be hearing impaired, make sure your video is closed captioned as well for accessibility. have the ability to go live with streaming video. You can conduct interviews, chat with your audience, answer questions from the comments, and even post the call to action like a fundraiser while you live stream.

Why should you have a content calendar ?(Using a content calendar)

Without a calendar, you'll be scrambling to post content in real-time, racking your brain for something relevant, and unaware that it may need to tie into previous posts or created campaigns

Tip 2 to keep in mind while setting up a profile(Steps to set up social media presence)

You can also add a reference to your location and your username; that could help if you want to attract more people in your neighborhood, or if you want to distinguish between stores in different locations. For instance, ice cream business Hometown Creamery's account name on Instagram is @sfhometowncreamery, to show that they're based in San Francisco, or West Elm, an American home goods store added 'AUS' in their Instagram username for their account that's related to their Australian part of the business.

What is organic content ?(Identify what to post)

You can create organic content, which is content created for posts and tweets and where you interact with your audience like a fellow user. You can build engagement and conversation through organic content, it's also free.

Where can you create a content calendar ?(Using a content calendar)

You can use any templates that you think will work best for you, or you can rely on content calendar tools from companies like HotSpot or Hootsuite for instance.

Let's look at a few ways to repurpose content for different audiences and platforms/ taking one piece of content and repurposing for 5 different websites by breaking it down(Re purposing content)

You created a step-by-step tutorial for your blog on how to set up a simple website and you share that link with your audience. What else can you do? That tutorial could easily turn into slide deck, which you could post on LinkedIn. Take the slide deck and add a voice over or use the texts from your blog posts to narrate a screen cap and share that to YouTube. Take clips of the YouTube video and share them as a teaser or lead generator on Instagram. Take the steps in your tutorial and create a tweets thread with those steps on Twitter. Finally, make an infographic to post on Pinterest. In each of these situations, you can also tweak your caption for each platform to appeal to that platform's audience.

What should you include in your content calendar ?(Using a content calendar)

You should include anything that's going live to your followers. Like the posts contents, any images or videos that go with it, any links you may include, and any hashtags you're using. You also want to include any information you want to track, such as which platform it's on, whether it's an ad, or original content, or a reshare, or curated content, and so on. And of course, you want to include a specific date and time the content goes live

Speaking of employees, show them in your post at work(Topics to post about)

have them showcase a product or service to your audience or have one of them do social media takeover for the day.

Here's an example from Instagram where a food(Topics to post about)

influencer, Chicago Food Authority, plugs a sandwich from Butterfly Kitchen. Note, the hashtag "sponsored" at the bottom of the post indicating that Butterfly Kitchen paid the influencer for this post.

Evoking strong emotion(What makes content go viral)

is also an excellent way to go viral. The emotion could be happiness, sadness, or even anger. EX:(A good example of this is Johnnie Walker's 2015 Dear Brother ad. In the ad to two 20 something brothers walked through breathtakingly gorgeous Scottish highlands. They tracked through rolling hills and stop at ruined stone cabins, sharing Johnnie Walker all the way until they reach cliff overlooking the ocean. Then the ad reveals that one of the brothers was dead and the other went to the cliff to spread his ashes. People immediately posted reaction videos of how the ad made them weep after it aired. It's since been viewed over tens of millions of times. Johnnie Walker successfully evoked strong emotion to create the most successful whiskey commercial in history)

Benefits of curated content?(Identify what to post)

it takes the pressure off you having to create more content, but curating content to share takes some effort as you do need to keep on top of who's posting what in your industry.

Finally (Topics to post about)

just sell something. Post a product or service you offer with a link to purchase it. Social media platforms are beginning to add purchase buttons to their posts so that followers can be taken directly to a purchase page to buy. Of course, you shouldn't sell in every post, but it's perfectly fine to do so on a regular basis in combination with other posts that are more focused on engaging your audience

Share content from your website (Topics to post about)

like a blog post, an article, or a podcast. It's useful information your audience would be interested in.

Create pieces of content around upcoming holidays or special events(Topics to post about)

like the Super Bowl or Election day. Be sure to keep up on special days in your industry like National Ice Cream Day or Independent Bookstore Day. Take a note of these days and add them to your content calendar to make sure you don't miss out ( an Instagram posts from Target around the winter holidays or Sesame Street's tweet for Bert's birthday.)

Create a behind the scenes post(Topics to post about)

of your workplace so your audience can get a peek behind the curtain, give a tour of your stock room or your kitchen, for instance. Or show behind the scenes of how you're putting together an upcoming event. Or show a day in a life of an employee, so that your audience can get a feel for the other side of your business

What is typography (Brand identity)

or the selection of typefaces and fonts that are business chooses helps communicate its visual brand. Like a logo typeface is trying to capture the feeling and association of the brand in lettering. And while business can certainly just pick a font from the drop down, a business wanting to be deliberate about its brand will be its story, values and purpose while choosing their typeface. In many ways, a brands typeface will be as recognizable as it's logo. Look at the New York Times and The New Yorker. Both are long, running, well respected New York based publications.

Benefits to having a content calendar :(Using a content calendar)

organization. By planning ahead on what content you're going to post, when, and to what platform, you keep your upcoming posts organized. It allows you the time to be more thoughtful about your posts, and to map them as greater content strategy as well since you can see a few weeks or months in advance. Having a content calendar will help you keep consistency in your brand voice. Not only does it allow you to see multiple posts and how they fit together to further your brand, you'll probably be writing multiple posts at once or batching, which will guarantee they'll be written in the same voice. You will also have the ability to review upcoming posts. If one doesn't align with your brand voice, you can pull it, or revise it. Having a content calendar allows you to fill in the gaps as well. Social media requires constant posting to keep followers engaged. So, having a content calendar that shows what's being posted when, will help you see any gaps you may have in scheduled posts, or if there are too many posts in one time for instance.

Ask your audience a question to get them engaged(Topics to post about)

prompt them to reply in the comments, take a poll or do some trivia. This builds audience interaction and can start some fun conversation, but make sure that you're around to respond to the comments

Whats a social media profile for a business? (Steps to set up social media presence)

typically a page that holds all the information and activity on the social media platform for that business.

Creating imra's storyboard to plan out for her new story in 7 steps (Creating a storyboard)

ut we want to make sure we include an opening block with a title and setup to let our audience know what they're about to see. Let's add that panel at the beginning. We also want to have a call to action after the bouquet has been created, which will be something like buy this bouquet today, or discover more bouquets Let's add another panel onto the end that will be our call to action, and which will contain a link to our website Let's start sketching out the panels for our storyboard, so we can see visually what our Instagram story is going to look like... Let's make text to go in the video instead. In addition to the text, we want to add some stickers on those videos. So let's include that in our storyboard as well, so we don't forget. Let's add our logo in the bottom right corner of each video too. So let's include any hashtags we want to include, draft our call to action language, and make sure we have the right link.

If you have a product or service you offer, make a tutorial(Topics to post about)

video showing how it's used or how it works. Like using an app to order a rideshare, making a food box recipe or showing what workouts are like at the new gym.

Showcase your customers, feature a customer of the week(Topics to post about)

week or month and share their story with your audience. Or have a customer give a testimonial about your product or service that you can share as well. Here's an example from Southwest Airlines, a post featuring two of their younger customers. Here's an example from the Gap, an Instagram post featuring a picture of a customer in one of their dresses. Because of the organic nature of social media, businesses are finding success in promoting their products or services by partnering with an influencer, create some sponsored content with them or have them do a social media takeover of your accounts for the day so their audience can get exposed to your business