What is a 30 Minute Social Session?
30 Minute Social Sessions are my tested recommendations to help small business owners overcome that overwhelming feeling of where to go and what to do to keep their social media marketing working.
Each session will show you steps you can do for 30 minutes (or less!) to help you grow your social media presence and to get your message heard by the people who want to buy from you.
If you missed the previous 30 Minute Social Sessions, here are the links to review them:
Click here to read how I scheduled these Facebook 30 Minute Social Sessions once a week into my calendar.
How I learned about how to track my site’s traffic with the Google Analytics 30 Minute Social Session that I do once a month.
What I learned about how a little Twitter 30 Minute Social Session goes a long a way.
Why I’m moving my eggs to the Pinterest basket with the Pinterest 30 Minute Social Session.
Two secret steps to take to increase your presence with the LinkedIn 30 Minute Social Session.
It’s all about the timer
This is our 5th month of working on our 30 Minute Social Sessions. By now, you know the secret tip to getting everything done is finding a timer that keeps you on task.
Just a reminder about my favorite online timer – I use this one because I can see the time left in the browser’s tab and I don’t need to keep checking the browser page to check my remaining time: http://www.online-stopwatch.com/countdown-timer/
So grab your favorite timer or pull up my online stopwatch version and let’s get to work!
This Month’s 30 Minute Social Session: Instagram
This month, we’re adding one MORE social program to our marketing mix. I realize by now it feels beyond overwhelming to figure out how to handle five different social programs in one month. It even feels like it’s too much for me, and I do this social stuff for a living!
Now my week consists of using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and adding in Instagram. This was the month where I saw my social media patterns start to emerge. I knew the steps for each 30 Minute Social Session and my updates became more of “how can streamline these activities” rather than adding more work to my already busy to-do list.
Hey, Look at me! I’m on Instagram!
I’ve been using Instagram personally for over a year but never thought about how to use it to grow my business. During my research for this month’s 30 Minute Social Session, I found all these businesses who were getting traffic to their website from Instagram. So I tested out all the ideas I found to see what would happen.
I switched gears from my usual 3 – 5 Instagram posts a month for personal stuff to 5 – 6 Instagram posts a week for my business. I also changed out my profile with these tips:
- Make sure your bio has relevant keywords to describe what your business does and tells a little about who you are.
- Add your full business name (or your real name) into the bio section.
- Include your website in your profile – unlike the other social sites, your bio section is the ONLY place where you can add in a link to your website.
- Upload you profile picture and don’t just leave it as the generic image. Everyone recommends that you use the same profile picture as your other social sites but I used a different one. Since my account was already flooded with images of my son and my Golden Retriever (who is the cutest dog EV.ER), I used one of my favorite pictures of my dog and myself. I wanted to test this out to see if it really made a difference with whether I got new followers or not.
- Make sure your posts are set to the PUBLIC feature – uncheck “Posts are Private” on the Edit Profile page so everyone can see your images.
Instagram Strategy
With my profile ready to go, my next step was to figure out what to post. If your company sells products, you’ll have an easier time deciding what to share on Instagram. You can take photos of your products, people using your products or even silly things like your dog with your products.
But what if you’re like me and you sell services? And I don’t even sell a service like a home improvement company where you can take a photo of the yucky kitchen and then post images as the room turns into someone’s dream kitchen.
I sell coaching services to help small businesses add social media into their work schedule. How do I post THAT on Instagram?
Before I started posting images, I spent my first Instagram 30 Minute Social Session as a brainstorming session. I pulled out a piece of paper and wrote down everything I could think of connected to my business. My list included: blog posts images I could share the links to in the comment section, events I was going to, a local workshop I was teaching and the two new products I was working on.
Once I got a better idea of WHAT to post, it made it easier to come up with other ideas for my daily Instagram post. The most interesting thing I learned from my month of the Instagram Social Session was how I became more aware of my surroundings. It wasn’t about what I ate for breakfast that day. It became more about what was going on behind the scenes of my life and how all those little things added up to telling my company’s story.
30 Minute Blocks of Time?
Each 30 Minute Social Session is about taking productive social media tasks and breaking them down into focused blocks of time. But Instagram doesn’t work like that. I found that each session took me about 10 – 15 minutes so I was able to easily post on Instagram at least 5 times a week.
Over the past month, here are the tips I learned to grow my presence on Instagram:
1. Learn how to use the edit tools and figure out which filters look best for each image.
2. Experiment with the different looks. Not every image should have the same filters and features – mix it up to see which images get more engagement.
3. Post consistently. This was a big one for me. Once I upped my my posting to a 5 times a week, the number of my followers increased.
4. There is not time of day that is better than others to post. I tested posting at lunchtime and again between 9pm – 10pm. The time of day didn’t affect the number of Likes I got. The content of the image determined whether people liked it or followed me.
5. Find and follow people who are in the same business as you. This is a great way to see how others in your industry are using Instagram. I also found that when I followed people who were like me, several of them followed me back.
6. Always add copy to the post comment under the image. This is the space where you can talk about your business, or the product/service or to let people know they can read the blog post for more information at your site. You can add in a site link to the comment section but it will NOT be hyperlinked (the bio is the only area where you can click on an active link) and will require the person to manually type it in.
7. HASHTAGS – the biggest thing that will bring people to your images are your use of hashtags. Even though you can use up to 30, please don’t or you’ll look spammy. It’s best to use 5 – 7 relevant hashtags with every Instagram post.
8. Engage with others – after I uploaded my image, I spent a few minutes in my home feed liking or commenting on other people’s images. Instagram is a social site not just a place to upload your photos. So be social, comment and follow other people!
What did I learn?
I spent the first week updating my profile and working on some ideas for my Instagram strategy. The rest of the month, I posted images and spent my time engaging and finding new people to follow.
1. What happened to the timer? I didn’t need the timer for this program. Each session took me about 15 minutes and I was in and out quickly. BUT if you find yourself falling down the Instagram rabbit hole, by all means, use your timer to tell you when to log off.
2. The more posts I did, the quicker I got. I learned which filters I liked best. I figured out which hashtags brought me more Likes and at the end of the month, I could see which type of content got more engagement.
3. My engagement and my followers increased. The more often I posted, the more followers I got. The more specific my hashtags were, the more people who are closer to my target audience engaged with me.
I would love to connect with everyone on Instagram! You can find me at http://instagram.com/penneyfox – I’ve had so much fun with this social session that I’m sure I’ll be doing more experimenting to see what works. Follow along with me on my Instagram journey!
My Social Sessions Schedule
Now, we’re into our sixth 30 Minute Social Session. Just like last month, it became even more challenging to add one more thing into my work week.
And my posting patterns started to emerge. I found the social programs that gave me a greater return on my time (brought more traffic to my site) got more of my attention. With a limited schedule, it just doesn’t make sense to waste time on a site that isn’t going to help me reach my goals.
I’m still working though the steps in each session but I’m also doing a lot more free moments of social time into my day (sitting in the school car line, waiting for my lunch appointment to arrive or for a meeting to start). I’ve still continued to pull back from Facebook and spend my time with the top social programs that are sending me more site traffic.
Here is the breakdown of my time using the checklists from the 30 Minute Social Sessions.
Facebook:
Every week, I did my 30 minutes to schedule my posts for the week. Since Facebook is losing it’s impact for my business, I’ve scaled back on the Social Sessions to twice a month = 30 minutes per week for updating and 1.0 hour per month for the Social Session
Google Analytics:
I’m still checking once a month to see where my traffic is coming from. I can knock this thing out pretty quickly now = 20 minutes once a month
Twitter:
Once a week, 30 Minute Social Session + 30 minutes to schedule my posts in Hootsuite for the week = 1.0 hour per week
Plus I use my free moments to add in new posts about what’s happening in my day, retweet people I’m following or thank someone for sharing a blog post = I’d say this is approximately an additional 2 hours for the whole week.
Total of Twitter time – 3.0 hours for the week
Pinterest:
Twice a week, 30 Minute Social Session, once to create new content and the other session to find new people = 1.0 hour per week
I scaled back to a couple of days a week to do a quick 10 minute session to repin what was in the home feed = This was approximately an additional 1 hour for the whole week.
Total of Pinterest time – 2.0 hours for the week
LinkedIn:
I scaled back on this one too. Twice a month now I do my 30 Minute Social Session to go into my groups.
Remember, I do double scheduling when I log into Hootsuite to do my Twitter updates. With just a quick click on the profile picker, some of the posts I schedule for Twitter were also scheduled on LinkedIn.
Total of LinkedIn time – 1.0 hour for the month
Instagram:
About five times a week, I’m doing a quick 15 minute session where I upload an image, hit the Like button on images in my home feed and find at least 5 more people to follow.
Total of Instagram time – 1.5 hours for the week
At this point, I’m doing around 7 hours a week to keep my social media presence growing. I reduced the time on LinkedIn to add in more time for Instagram and I’m still moving my attention from Facebook to Twitter.
And it’s not really 7 hours at one sitting, but scattered throughout the week and when I have those free moments that life throws my way.
If you missed the previous 30 Minute Social Sessions, here are the links to review them:
Click here to read how I scheduled these Facebook 30 Minute Social Sessions once a week into my calendar.
How I learned about how to track my site’s traffic with the Google Analytics 30 Minute Social Session that I do once a month.
What I learned about how a little Twitter 30 Minute Social Session goes a long a way.
Why I’m moving my eggs to the Pinterest basket with the Pinterest 30 Minute Social Session.
Two secret steps to take to increase your presence with the LinkedIn 30 Minute Social Session.
Post your comments!
I opened up the comments section for this page so let me know how the Instagram 30 Minute Social Sessions works for you. I realize this month wasn’t like the others but I’m still curious to hear about whether my tips helped you to grow your Instagram followers.
The next 30 Minute Social Session was slated to be with YouTube but it’s taking me more time to get this together. There’s way too much for me to learn in just 30 days so I’ve decided to take an online class to learn more about how YouTube works. When I’m ready to share everything with you, I’ll let you know in one of my Social Media Conversations.