TIPPING THE SCALE ON SOCIAL MEDIA — FINDING A BALANCE BETWEEN YOUR ONLINE AND OFFLINE WORLDS4/29/2018 With notifications blowing up your phone with likes, followers, comments and retweets, text messages and email bings, it can be really hard to be present in the moment and not be consumed by the constant pull of the online world. According to Quartz, on average people spend more than 490 minutes of their day on some sort of media making peoples screen time two hours longer than their average night's sleep. Many people criticize this constant connection to the media, claiming life would be better if people removed social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat from their lives, however it isn’t that simple. Social media allows you to keep in touch with friends and family whom you may not see often, it propels businesses forward, introduces you to events, people, news and allows you to interact with new people from all over the world. Like everything, there is good and bad to social media, the tricky part is learning to balance the two. 1. BE PRESENT IN THE MOMENTWhile social media allows us to be constantly connected to people from all over the world, it sometimes makes us anti-social. Sherry Turkle, the author of Reclaiming Conversation, The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, highlights our antisocial behavior of being on our phones at our dining room tables, in our living rooms, in business meetings and while hanging out with our friends. While we “think” we are being social because we are “with” people, we are actually completely missing the moment and instead distracted by our Instagram feed, an email or a video of a cute baby animal. Nowadays, when people feel anxious in social settings and almost instinctively pull out our phone as if to say “please nobody talk to me”
While those Instagram posts and baby animals are entertaining and emails are sometimes necessary, make a note in your mind to put your phone down when you are with people and actually experience the moment. According to a research from the University of Chicago, people feel better when their relationships happen face-to-face or over the phone as opposed to just over social media. So next time you are with people you care about take photos only to capture the moment and post your photo later, turn off your notifications, and actually be present. You can always look at your phone and post your pictures when you get home! 2. STOP COMPARING YOUR ONLINE PERSONA Social Media adds FOMO (fear of missing out) into our lives where we constantly feel anxious about not being invited to the events we see on social media, compare our lives to the lives of others and find ourselves wondering why we aren’t cool enough to be invited, why we don’t look like this person or have as much fun as that person. According to Lipschultz, people are constantly tempted to present themselves, as they would LIKE to be not necessarily how their lives actually are. So when you see someone having a great time at a party, frolicking on a beach somewhere, or only posting photos where they look borderline perfection stop for a second and remind yourself that on social media people carefully curate their personas and you shouldn’t compare another person's edited snapshot of time to your whole life because most-likely they feel the same way about your posts 3. TURN OFF YOUR INSTA-DISTRACTIONSSometimes it is hard to stay focused when there are notifications blowing up your phone, with 101 things that are more fun and more entertaining than your to-do list. According to Sherry Turkle, we are so addicted to a constant feed of connection, information and entertainment that when we are bored we pull out our phones. On a long bus ride, procrastinating at work, waiting in line at a store, or seeking relief from our to-do list, we pull out our phones to scroll through Facebook and Instagram even if we have already seen everything on there. While entertaining yourself when you are bored is completely normal it becomes an issue when it starts affecting your ability to be productive. According to Behavioral Scientist, if you want to be more productive with more energy for your daily activities, you should limit social networking to designated times of the day instead of as a constant stream of interruptions. Forbes claims that it takes 15 minutes to get into a workflow and every time you are distracted it takes that much time to get back in the zone. So, when trying to get stuff done, consider turning your phone on do-not-disturb until you are finished. That way your task will take less time and you can check social media after. FINAL THOUGHTSIt is really easy to get consumed by the online world, making it hard to be present in the moment, not become distracted by the unlimited access to entertainment and not compare your life to the online lives of others. I very often find myself sitting at a coffee shop with my best friend while we both stare at our phones instead of talking to each other. Instead of doing homework I sometimes find myself two hours into the Instagram pages of cute cats (I love cats) and very often I compare my social life to the lives portrayed on social media. But while social media is a great tool for entertainment, news, information and connection, sometimes it's helpful to just turn it off for a little while and come back to it later.
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With over 400 million daily active users, Instagram has become one of the major social media networks brands are using to reach their audiences. The visual nature of Instagram allows for brands to highlight their identity through images and create a narrative that lets customers feel the personality of a brand just by looking at the profile. While Instagram is a great platform to draw in any audience and highlight your brands through creative imagery, you must reach the right audience with the right posts to actually be successful on the platform.
According to Kaushik, contrary to what some may think, what matters on Instagram isn’t as simple as the number of followers, likes per post or your “followers to following ratio”. What is actually important is whether you grabbed your viewers attention, did people want to share your post, did they take action and click on your website or purchase a product? However, the simple numbers are what allow for these questions to be answered. THE QUESTIONS ANSWERED BY INSTAGRAM ANALYTICSAccording to Lipschultz, using metrics allows content creators to identify who their audience is and what types of posts, hashtags, keywords and captions generate the most views, likes, comments and clicks to purchase so that they are able create posts that best connect with their viewers.
According to Lipschultz, every follow, like, and comment comes with metadata attached to it including, location, date and time which can help you to understand your audience better. Knowing when your followers are active online (day and time) gives you insight on when is the best time to post to create the most impressions. What is Your Most Successful Content? -- According to Kaushik, measuring what types of content drive the most engagement through likes, comments, and saves, gives you insight on what to post again in the future. Instagram users ‘like over 4 billion posts everyday, making likes the easiest way for audience members to interact with your content on Instagram. Measuring your Applause Rate through “likes “ is a great way to start analyzing which posts are successful and which aren’t. Comments are another great way to measure your audience’s engagement. Your Conversation Rate, which is the number of audience comments or replies per post highlights now many people are actively trying to communicate with your brand. Comments are also a great way to spark conversations with your audience to build trust and loyalty between you and your followers. Even if your content doesn’t get liked or commented on just being seen by someone can spark interest in your brand. Your Impressions are the total number of times your content has seen weather it be by scrolling through their feed, viewing content on your profile, or viewing it through a direct message. Reach is similar in that it also shows the number of views your content has been seen by different accounts. If your impressions are higher than your reach it usually means that your audience is seeing your content multiple times. These metrics allow for content creators to see how many people are viewing the content in comparison to how many people are actually engaging with the content. NEW GOALS AND STRATEGIES BASED ON METRICSOnce you have recorded analytics over time and analyzed the content to find patterns in what works well and what doesn’t you can begin to move forward to create new goals or tweak your Instagram strategy based on the insights you have gained.
Keeping an eye on your metrics allows you to gain insight on how to grow your Instagram success in the future. Weather you are trying to grow your engagement, following, or drive to purchase, seeing what works and what doesn't with your current Instagram strategy will let you know what to keep on doing and what to potentially change. Knowing your metrics allows you to create obtainable goals that can be measured overtime and ultimately lead to success. Today Nike is the second most followed account on Instagram and the most followed apparel brand on the platform. With 76.9 million followers Nike has grown their Instagram following 134% in less than two years. Between their active lifestyle aesthetic, motivational slogan and their loyal community, Nike has been able to create a brilliant Instagram strategy that brought them all the way to the top. WHY USE INSTAGRAM?Nowadays, your Instagram page is just as important as your website’s landing page. Instagram is different than other social media platforms in that its visual nature allows for brands to highlight their identity through images and create a narrative that lets customers feel the personality of a brand just by looking at the profile. According to Forbes, 80% of the 700 million Instagram users choose to follow and connect with brands on Instagram, making their consumer to brand engagement 10x more than Facebook, 54x more than Pinterest, and 84x more than Twitter. This makes Instagram a fantastic platform to highlight your brand's story and connect with consumers. LEARN FROM NIKE’S IMMEDIATELY RECOGNIZABLE BRAND IDENTITYIt’s a Lifestyle — Nike’s brand identity is so strong that you can pinpoint one of their products, advertisements, or posts simply by the presence of their swish or their slogan “Just Do It” and sometimes even without those at all. Nike’s motivational identity is at the heart of everything they do regardless of being online or offline. Nike uses Instagram to connect their brand to build the “Just Do It” lifestyle rather than solely focusing on bombarding its followers with product shots and promotional material. According to Inc, they very successfully use Instagram to make customers feel as though they are not buying the products but instead buying the lifestyle that is associated with the products. They use motivational copy that connects with their followers gaining them up to 500,000 likes per post. Nike has been wildly successful when creating a community both online and offline that share the same lifestyle goals as the brand. Nike was able to do this, not only because of their cohesive brand lifestyle, voice and motivational mission, but because they actively reach out to their community. Nike encourages their followers to participate in the Nike community by asking them to share their #Nike lifestyle and then regularly giving customers a shout-out on their page. By allowing your customers to participate in content creating and interact with your brand it creates a narrative that is compelling and worth following. Yes, we want to hear other people's personal stories because it makes us feel like we can share our own and it only elevates the authenticity of the brand. Instagram is a great platform to showcase your brands personality. Before posting you have to consider who you are as a brand and who your audience is. Is your brand “Funny? Inspirational? Heartfelt? Sarcastic?”, figure out who you are and then stick to it. Create an Aesthetic — Although Nike sells work out clothing, sneakers and sports equipment, all things that wouldn’t stereotypically be considered stunning, they play to the nature of Instagrams platform and post images that are visually beautiful and hard not to like. According to Sprout, your Instagram posts should not only connect to the overall personality of the brand but they should also connect visually. Weather that be a cohesive color pallet or a type of camera angle, the composition of your Instagram should reflect your brands lifestyle mission but also your brands aesthetic. When working with Instagram you have to take into consideration the nature of the platform. Instagram is founded on visuals, so in order to be successful you have to post beautiful content that isn’t just a montage of branded images. Remember, on Instagram your posts are selling a lifestyle not just your products. People Like a Good Story — Many think that Instagram stops after taking the photo but captions are just as important when creating your brand's story. According to Forbes, a consistent voice will create authenticity and allow people to connect with your brand. By linking your comments and copy on Instagram to the same mission as your photos you create a brand that has personality and reliability. A brand that people want to follow because they are sincere and interesting on top of posting great content. A "Just Do It" COmmunityHashtags -- Using hashtags allows people to connect their personal pages and posts to your brand, which strengthens the community and allows for content to be shared within it. #Nike, has over 68 million posts on Instagram allowing people to interact with the brand and see how other people are interacting with them as well. Nike used the growth of #Nike as a way to celebrate their community. For 24 hours Nike shared 10 Instagram photos from their customers who had posted using their hashtag thanking them for inspiring the company and highlighting the story of the fan who posted the original photo. Doing this not only build brand loyalty and made customers feel appreciated and included but also gained them thousands of likes and comments, made headlines and created brand awareness. User Generated Content -- Like Nike, when your brand’s community grows large enough for members to start sharing photos that feature your brand, it allows you to repost their content and encourage others to post their experiences with your products. According to Sprout, UGC is extremely beneficial to creating brand loyalty and trust but when using UGC you still have to make sure it is in line with your brands image before posting it to your own page and to give the original poster credit. UGC allows for a “we’re all in this together” vibe that not only gives your brand new content to post but also creates greater brand loyalty. Final ThoughtsNike has done an incredible job of highlighting the personality of the their brand and creating a lifestyle that is associated with their products. But you don’t have to be a huge brand like Nike to follow their Instagram marketing strategy successfully. Once you have a mission statement about who you are as a brand and what you want to portray to the world you just have to stick to it no matter what. Weather it be your voice, your instagram photos, or the narrative you tell through all your content, being true to your brand will make you relatable and trustworthy. If you create your brand as a lifestyle people will want to live it.
Go create an Instagram empire. Nike’s brand started from scratch just like yours did. “Just Do It”. |
HELlOI'm Sydney, a 20 year old from Boston figuring out how to "adult" and not freeze out here in the real world. Archives
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