Few will be able to learn that you produce a good, high-quality product and develop your business. If you don't tell me about it. Previously, the best way to convey information to the audience were Newspapers and radio. In the modern world, to increase the impact on the market with minimal costs, it is necessary to use social networks as a tool for business development.

Among the advantages of such promotion are technical and financial accessibility, interactivity, extensive coverage and the possibility of cross-platform campaigns. Of the disadvantages-regularly changing algorithms of material placement, which complicates the determination of performance indicators.

Social networks are a communication channel, a channel for delivering information about your product or service to those consumers who are ready to buy

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How to navigate in social networks?

• 1 . Popularity
  Depending on who is measuring, the positions in the list of the most popular social networks among Russians vary. According to VimpelCom, the audience of Facebook and Instagram among the company's subscribers increased by 22% from January to December 2017, putting these networks in a leading position. We offer them and navigate.

• 2 . Characteristics of the audience
  When choosing to promote your business in the social network, the first priority is the correct assessment. It is necessary to understand what social network is used by potential and regular customers.

For example, Instagram is good for promoting products and services to the end user. (B2C segment). To promote the sale of highly specialized products in the B2B segment (business), this tool is not adapted. And services in the B2B segment are well developed (consulting in any field — from accounting to coaching of top managers).

• 3 . Geography and accessibility
  In some States there is a ban on social networks. In China, for example, banned Facebook, and in Kazakhstan — a Live Journal . Therefore, to increase the impact on the end user in different countries, use relevant Internet channels.

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Where to start?

Work in social networks can be divided into two components:

1. Working with content
2. Technical work

But with what start?

• First, determine the target. You want to increase the recognition of your company/product or increase customer loyalty by organizing a quality sales channel.

• Second, determine the strategy and tools to achieve it.

• Third, make a decision. Will you do the promotion yourself or hire a social media specialist.

After these steps, register an account and start exploring what kind of advertising is placed in the social network you are interested in, whether there are competitors.

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How Instagram works

Initially, Instagram was created to allow people to quickly share photos with friends and the world on the phone. The bias in visual content is still there, but its quality is now given much more attention than a few years ago.

Check-list good photo (you can use it for photos in other social networks):

1. High resolution. The better the camera on the smartphone, the higher the resolution can be put in priority.

2. Brightness and color combination. Many options: this could be one colorful element among the less bright or unusual color combination.

3. The plot or action in the photo. It's not a selfie. According to the observations of SMM specialists, most likes and comments get photos, which shows several people.

4. The clarity of the photos. Objects must be clearly visible at a glance. Especially popular in Instagram photo with objects shot close-up.

In order for your photographs were the most vivid and stood out among many others, use the basic Instagram filters or additional in-app — Instasize, VSCO or Snap Seed. Be careful with tricks like Prisma.

Collages in Instagram are a thing of the past, use the best carousel — post up to 10 photos in one post. And remember: your posts will appear in the ribbon only those people that they are interesting: those who put likes and comments. Even your subscribers will gradually stop seeing your photos if they do not interact with them. One of the criteria of "interesting" photos for the current algorithm is how long a person considers a photo.

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Follow the rule "one post - one thought"

If your photos have attracted attention, the interested audience will start reading the text of the publication. In Instagram, text is limited to 2,000 characters. Therefore, your thoughts should be as accurate and concise as possible. Do not make grammatical mistakes, it is very spoils the impression.

Statistics show that in Instagram-post can be packaged as a selling text and philosophical reasoning.

By the way. If the phrase on the sales letter, you have now thought about the texts with appeals to "buy" and a laudatory article about the fact that you're the best, forget about it. Selling in this case is to make a description in the profile.

If you qualitatively have thought about the niche selection, product and worked for offer any of your lyrics that sell. But it will be of high quality and attractive to the audience. Tell us about the product, yourself and your company or service. And then the mention from time to time of the offer will look organic and logical.

How did Facebook and Instagram manage to become leaders in the growth of the audience? Experts believe that this was facilitated by the introduction of new functions: live broadcast and stories. The latter is not currently ranked by the Instagram algorithm, so your stories are seen by all subscribers. Use stories and live to not only tell you more about your product, your company or yourself, but also to demonstrate the volume of the product, its packaging, properties, production or storage conditions. Give your subscribers a tour of your shop. Live call on subscribers to ask questions and be sure to answer them. These videos are a great way to increase your audience's trust. In addition, in stories can add an active link to the desired site or make announcements of live broadcasts.

Social networks functionality allows you to automatically notify your subscribers about live broadcasts. But it's better if you pre-warned all on its own, clearly putting the time and date the live broadcast in separate posts.

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Proper announcement of your live broadcast will give you 80% success

Instagram for business

From the community of friends Instagram is increasingly becoming a full-fledged business tool. Here you can register not only a personal but also a business account, which will open access to additional functions of the network. For example, you can see the characteristics of your audience and manage impressions.

In 2016, Instagram began testing shopping tags. With this technology, stores will be able to mark their products in photos, and users of the service — to buy them in one click, without leaving the application. It's like the marks you put on the photo of your friends.

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How to promote your account

In addition to good, regularly updated content, there are techniques to make your account more popular and visible:

1. Be active. Subscribe to the accounts of other users, like their photos, comment on posts — so you will notice not only the owner of another account, but also his subscribers. By the way, there are different tricks to "cheat" subscribers. We recommend that you be careful with such techniques: among the wound subscribers a lot of bots that will never buy anything from you. The trust to the account of real consumers with a large number of subscribers-bots is low.

2. Use hashtags — special hyperactive label. Instagram has a hashtag search feature, so users have a good chance of finding you by keyword. But do not use too popular hashes — in search engine will be too many posts, and you risk getting lost. Also avoid too strange hashtags — but you, they are unlikely someone will come to mind, so it will be a wasted resource.

3. Use geotags to your advantage: put down in the labels of the place, popular with your audience. You don't even have to be there physically. The principle here is the same as with hashtags.

4. Mark other users in your photos, if appropriate.

5. In the texts, use the familiar to you by sales scripts call-to-action: call to put likes, save posts in bookmarks, communicate with each other. Be useful. Ask questions in the texts so that users can quickly and unambiguously answer them in the comments.

6. Run polls and contests. But remember that abusing paragraphs 5 and 6, it is possible to lose the active audience. How to avoid this? Keeping the balance. Trial and error method-test your unpublished posts on friends and employees.

7. The age of social networks has spawned a new type of content — a viral video. This is a short video that spreads quickly and massively like a virus. This happens due to some shocking, spectacular or very funny content.

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A check-list of the functional account:

• You have a full profile. Once it is clear who you are and what you offer.
• The profile contains contacts, ideally configured awesoomee.
• Your account is updated regularly (at least 1 time and 3 times a day).
• The content corresponds to the direction of your business. Or does not correspond, but this is done intentionally and is very stylish.
• You use hyperlinks to other channels and points of interaction with the client.
• You have configured UTM tags-these are tags that allow you to get information about the source of traffic to your account. To create them, use the free software available on the Internet.
• You're using hashtags.
• If you are active. Comment and like posts in other people's accounts, communicate with their subscribers.

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How Facebook works

Facebook and Instagram have a lot in common. All that is written above, to Instagram, it is also applicable for Facebook. Tell us about the differences.

Facebook is focused on a large number of text content. In posts there are no restrictions on volume, there are special formats — notes and instant articles. They can be designed so that they will look like a full-fledged material in the media.

With the algorithm of showing posts everything is difficult: Facebook itself decides what is interesting to the subscriber, based on his profile, these interests, subscriptions to pages and groups, likes. If your friends don't like your posts, Facebook decides they're not interested and stops showing posts in their feeds. Although in General, the algorithm of the network is configured so as to involve the audience as much as possible and force to like. Your business is to organize high-quality content. In the understanding of Facebook quality, so its unique. In case of reposting the messages of mass media or other users, it is recommended to provide them with at least a minimum author's comment.

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Quality = unique

In addition to your personal account, you can create pages and groups on Facebook. They have different functionality. The main difference between pages and groups from personal accounts in the absence of restrictions on the number of subscribers and friends. Pages are accessible to all and visible even to unregistered users. Groups are most often narrowly specialized. The visibility settings of the group you can manage and publish to moderate. Groups, pages, and accounts can be linked to each other, making it easier for you to manage them and increase audience reach and engagement, because subscribers may know about the group, but are not aware of the existence of the page. This is done in the settings page: Settings - > Edit page - > Groups - > Add tab - > Link group.

In Instagram there is a function of automatic repost in other social networks, including Facebook. Sometimes it is convenient, but it is better to keep everything under control by yourself: the posts and hashtags from Instagram are not always aesthetically displayed in Facebook, as well as networks of different audiences and presentation format.

Meanwhile, linking your Instagram account to your Facebook business account is useful. This will allow you to carry out advertising campaigns in Instagram, which are launched with the help of special software-Facebook Ads Manager, as well as to collect accurate statistics on them. Here, advertising campaigns will need to plan a budget.

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Shop on Facebook

Facebook allows you to design your page as a store. To do this, select a template with the appropriate tab when registering. It will allow you to post photos and information about your products, accompanied by their price. At the same time, any Facebook user will be able to click on the product to place an order on the site. By selecting such a template, you can also add a product card to any post as simply as adding to the posts of ordinary photos or attach a file to an e-mail.

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What else useful can be done in Facebook

Here are some tips to make your Facebook page interesting and readable:

• Put the logo or photos associated with your company on the avatar page or group of your company.

• Use the cover of the group or page to post information about the company or product, and in the description of the cover necessarily add links to the site or product. Inserted into the cover of the promo videos. remember that the video is shown without sound.

• Invite your friends to like and subscribe to pages and groups. Just be careful: many users do not like when they are added to the group and send a group to ban. Invite those who are definitely interested.
  Use and other functions of Facebook:

• Create calendars and events, set up alerts;

• Set the time of publications in groups and on pages. Since access to your groups and pages is not limited to a single time zone, the most up-to-date publication time will help you identify experience and quality Analytics.

• Promptly respond to user comments via the service alerts;

• Conduct polls, set the tone for communication.

Due to the user-friendly interface and the ability to work with PC Facebook more interactive channel than Instagram. On Facebook, even media and public figures try to use real names, this network does not accept Nicki. At the same time, the format of the social network implies the ability to directly address any person without unnecessary ceremonies. So Facebook will be useful not only to promote your business, but also to find partners, like-minded people and professionals.

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Analytics

Even if we are talking about promotion without a certain budget, you should pay attention to the analysis of their accounts in social networks, in particular, the effectiveness of your actions. In addition to the internal functionality of each social network, there is a lot of special software that will help you gather information. For example, CScore determines how productive a Facebook page is. Evaluates a variety of metrics: audience activity and involvement, quality and quantity of content.

JagaJam is a universal platform for working with social networks. Conducts in-depth analysis of communities and groups (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter). Evaluates metrics: activity, engagement, content. There is a possibility to compare communities in different settings.

In addition to free applications, there are large systems for media analysis. Monitoring social networks allows you to track the mention of the company or brand, top topics, context takes into account.

All these software helps to evaluate the effectiveness of the account and content on the main parameters: the number of likes, comments and reposts, coverage and involvement of the audience.

The more likes and comments, the better your post. Some give recommendations directly on the content: what parts of it were interesting and what did the competitors.

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Some more useful recommendations

• When registering, choose a convenient, memorable account name that will repeat the name of your company or at least be associated with it. Try not to use a dash or an underscore in the title.

• After registration, fill out your profile as much as possible succinctly: description of the company, product. Be sure to specify the contact information (telephone number, e-mail, website address).

• If you sign up for an active e-mail address, both Instagram and Facebook will ask you to send it to your contacts and recommend people in the address book of your e-mail to subscribers or friends. Agree!

• If you register a business account, set up a social network auto-reply: short messages that will be received by your new subscribers and people who sent the message to Direct. In the auto-reply remind you who you are, where to find your contacts and when you will be able to answer the request. Also configure the button so that users of the social network can automatically call you or send an e-mail.

• Contact the administrators or owners of other non-competitive accounts with a similar audience or the number of subscribers, agree on partnership promotion. You can recommend pages to each other or to arrange a joint campaign to promote.

• Promote your accounts offline: add the addresses of your Instagram and Facebook pages to your business cards and signature emails, take photos and Souvenirs with their mention. Tell about them and ask offline friends to subscribe.

Turning into business channels, social networks are increasingly adopting the classic media. Therefore, we recommend that you consider some principles.

1. Respect copyright: don't steal other people's photos and texts. If you do repost, accompany them with your comments and links to the original.

2. The topics that attract the most audience are not new. They still call the "rule of 5": sex, scandal, fear, sensation, death. Use them only in accordance with the overall strategy of your company.

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The reader is interested in events that contain elements of his own primitive nature:

1. self-preservation,
2. love and sex,
3. vanity

Materials containing one element are good. If they contain two elements, they are even better. But if they contain all three elements, then this is a first-class information material.

William Randolph Hearst

Promotion of business in social networks, and on the Internet in General — only one of the vectors of development. In fact, you have to take into account and keep in mind dozens of other areas. Not the fact that all of them are necessary for the growth of your business and income.