Social media is a constant game of cat and mouse.

Change and innovation are the two most important things in the world of social media. You have to stay on top of it, or you’ll be left behind.

This ever-changing landscape, with new features, trends, algorithms, and updates being released on a regular basis, can be intimidating for businesses and individuals attempting to establish a strong social media presence.

Here’s how you can stay on top of the latest social media developments and make them work for you:

1. Make sure you’re using the right strategy for your business. Don’t let anyone tell you that one platform is better than another; they all have their strengths and weaknesses, so pick one that best suits your goals and needs.
2. Keep an eye out for updates. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter all make public announcements about updates and changes. Make it a habit to check these channels or sign up for updates from official sources to stay in the loop.
3. Experiment with new features: When new features roll out, make it a point to test them out to see how they can be used to achieve your goals. Just because a feature is new doesn't mean it's right for every brand, so test it out and see what works best for you.
4. Recruit experts who know what they’re doing. Look for influencers and professionals who are experts in their fields, whether it's blogging or social media marketing (or both). These individuals can assist you in making sense of the constantly changing world of content marketing and social media management.
5. Keep your brand’s voice and tone consistent. While trends come and go, your brand’s voice and tone should stay consistent. This will ensure that your audience knows what to expect from you and can identify your content more easily.
6. Monitor your numbers: Keep an eye on metrics like engagement rates, impressions, and click-through rates to see how your content is performing. This will help you identify what’s working and what’s not, so you can adjust your strategy accordingly.
7. Stay authentic: Social media is all about authenticity, so make sure that your content reflects your brand’s personality and values. Faking it or jumping on every trend can actually do more harm than good in the long run.

Navigating social media changes and trends can be challenging, but it’s necessary if you want to maintain a strong presence and stay relevant. Take the steps mentioned above, and you’ll be on the right track.

Instagram is a social media platform that is constantly adding new features to improve users' experiences. The reel is a common feature that allows you to create short, entertaining videos to share with your followers.

Reels can assist you in achieving your objectives if you are a business owner or entrepreneur looking to promote your brand on Instagram, as well as if you want to gain more followers and interact with your audience. It’s your turn to benefit from reels; many businesses have used them and found success with them. This feature can be a game-changer for you.

Here are some simple tips on how to use reels to boost your business on Instagram:

1. To get started with reels, first create a content plan: Think about what information you want to convey and what kinds of videos would appeal to your target audience. Will you be showcasing your products or talking about your services? The most important thing when creating reels is to keep them short and sweet. Your message needs to be concise and easily digestible.

2. Use eye-catching and high-quality visuals: Try to use Instagram’s creative tools, such as filters, stickers, and music, to make your content visually and auditorily appealing. But always stay true to your brand’s personality and voice.

3. Share Behind the Scenes: Reels can help you share behind the scenes of your business, which can help you build a personal connection with your audience. Quick tip: don’t overthink it. You can set up your phone or camera to record whenever you’re doing something and go about your business. The recorded clips will fit into your content puzzle at some point.

4. Optimize the caption and call-to-action: Tell people what to do directly. So as to encourage users to engage and take action.

5. Collaborate with other brands: Reach out to people in your industry and see if they’d be interested in working together on a video. This is an excellent way to expand your reach and get in front of a new audience.
You can also share the reels on your other social media platforms to promote your reels and increase the reach and engagement of your content.

Take your business to the next level on Instagram by implementing these tips. Instagram reels are not only useful but also a fun way to interact with your audience. Maintain a close eye on the numbers and analyze insights to determine what works best for your brand.

Till next time.

We would like to draw your attention to a couple of things we noticed are common among brand pages on social media, especially Instagram and Twitter. One of the reasons we are here is to help you be the very best you can be as a business on social media. So keep reading.

Running a business on social media may be different from running a traditional business, but there are some things that apply generally and should be considered.

An example of this is a market survey, simple competitor research, or even a sample and refinement strategy. A survey of your target audience on social media will help you know what their patterns are, and how to apply yourself or your brand to suit their needs.

A "sample and refine" strategy is kind of like when you test out certain styles or product advertising methods to find the one thing your audience responds best to.

But we have seen brands online make these avoidable mistakes, and if you’ve made or are currently making any, it’s time to make adjustments where necessary.

1. Lifting exact ideas and posts from other brands can go one way or the other, but a simple fact remains: your brand will not be authentic, and there won’t be room for growth in the long run because you are already used to shortcuts. It’s best to study these ideas, posts, etc., pick what you need, expand on it, or just use them as inspiration for something better that you can create.
2. Random and careless commenting: This one is more common than you’d expect. When controversial posts are made on bigger pages, we see business handles leaving comments that are not particularly healthy for the brand. What this does is raise a flag in the minds of viewers, and it might cost you potential customers or clients. Whatever your personal views about topics may be, if they don’t tie into the vision or goals of your business, there is no need to leave any comments. You can do that with your personal page.
3. Zero room for feedback—what this points out is that some brands do not open up a conversation with their audience. If there is no room for interaction, then how will you get firsthand knowledge of whether you’re doing the right thing for not just your brand but also your clients? How will you know what the audience’s pain points are? Use stories, run polls, use CTAs in your feed captions and reel videos, etc.
4. Using a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to content across all boards, e.g., using the same content from Twitter, unedited, unrefined, and unadjusted, for Instagram. Each platform has a different algorithm, style, and content format. Twitter uses short text formats, and they now allow for threads.

This means you can cut your points into each thread line for easier digestion, and when one gets retweeted, there’s a high chance of the full thread being read. Instagram relies on eye-catching visuals and a one-line hook for your caption that either hits or misses your target audience. You could post detailed articles on your blog, refine that same content into a thread for Twitter, a carousel or live video for Instagram, etcetera. Even image sizing differs per space.

For you to get proper results, there is a need to tailor each content format and style to fit the space and pattern that will aid reach and a well-received message.

Thanks for reading.

For real-time updates, follow us on Instagram and Twitter.

It feels like the year is finally getting started, right? January was for warming up, and now it’s love season.

Today, we'll take a quick look at brand awareness, specifically on social media.

What is Brand Awareness? Generally speaking, from a marketing standpoint, it refers to how familiar your target audience is with your brand, how well they recognize it, and what you do.

Brand awareness on social media, though, is how likely your target audience is to be aware of your brand and your products or services.

You can determine the level of awareness by tracking the number of mentions and engagement your brand receives online. The more mentions, tags, and engagement, the greater your brand awareness.

An easy example is Instagram and Twitter's well-known content writer, HAUWA; her content is not just relatable and funny, but has a quirky twist to it, to the extent that almost every post she makes results in reposts, comments, and references. In fact, a person could see a random tweet or post and tag her in it because it reminds them of her or because they want her to create content around the subject in her own voice.

Her target audience is very aware of her brand, her brand voice, and the kinds of topics she is likely to touch on.

Can you say the same about your brand? Attention is fleeting on social media, and your ability to keep your brand in the minds of people is essential to achieving your brand goals.

How can you use social media to enhance brand awareness? Below are three examples:

1. Your brand should have a personality on social media. Something that sets you apart from the crowd. Personalize your brand, make it user-centric. This will draw your audience to you.
2. Give life to your posts. Make them pop, get creative, use your brand colors, a variety of content formats, illustrations, graphics, product photos, etcetera.
3. Collaborations. Partner with brands in your industry, brands that complement the products/services you offer, employ influencer marketing strategies, good partnerships increase awareness and ramp up credibility. And once people trust your brand, they will buy from you.

We hope you will use these tips to increase brand awareness.

Also, for your content in March, here are 2 important dates to build content around.

• March is Women’s History Month
• March 8th is International Women’s Day.

You can create content celebrating the women in your life, women who inspire you, your female customers, or create packages at a discount for the women on your timeline using the code "FEMALE."

Coincidentally, at Companyone, we are an all-woman team, and it matters to us to celebrate with women around the world building a great life for themselves.

SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY: A FEW TIPS

Can you believe it’s 2023? Whew! How time really does fly.

It feels like it’s been forever since we last wrote to you here, and we’re just glad to be writing to you this month, and we hope to be more consistent.

Since our relaunch we have had our heads deep in work, work and more work. Not like we’re complaining of course. Like every business, we’ve had ups and downs, wins and not so much.

All in all, we’re still grateful and we forge ahead trying to find that balance and flow between clients’ work and ours.

While we navigate that we’d like to give you a little something to think about.

As a product or service based business, how often do you tweak your social media strategy? How often do you pull out your drawing board to review and update your content plan?

Did I hear someone say “not often?”

If this is you, then you need to change. Yes, change is the only constant thing in life and it applies to your business and online presence. This is not some new year new me type of thing, it is a reminder that from time to time, you need to re-strategize for the benefit of your brand/business and your audience/customers.

A strategy is simply a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term aim. So to create a strategy you first need to have a goal in mind. With this goal in mind you can then tailor every aspect of your online presence, towards achieving this goal.

The digital world is like a river that keeps flowing; it’s always moving forward, and if you don’t track and follow, you will certainly get lost or stuck. There’s room for trial and error, but keep in mind that what works for brand A might not necessarily work for brand B.

What you should do:-

1. Know your business, your goal and your audience.
2. Review what has been working for your business, and what currently isn’t working.
3. Draft out plans for your socials — posting days and times, content type, best content formats for your business, how you’ll best utilize the majority of the features on your chosen platform, whether to run ads or not, how to link your offline strategy with your online strategy etc.
4. Test out the new plan and monitor the difference, take note of which parts of your strategy moves you closer to your overall goal(s), you can also decide on a timeline for reviewing and tweaking things in your plan.
5. Get a consultation from a professional.

Be rest assured that as long as you keep doing these, your business will progress in the online space, as you will learn a lot along the way, and no knowledge is ever really wasted. You will find a tricky spot where something you researched previously is the right fix.

We hope that you take a few pointers from this and put them to use in your business.

If you would like us to work on a strategy for your business instead, you can as well send us a message here and we’ll respond.

Once again, happy new year and we wish you the best year yet.

If you missed our post on 4 reasons your Instagram posts aren’t getting engagement, then you need to catch up so you can begin to apply new strategies to your business. We also did a post on how you can write more engaging captions.

While we have been busy with client work, we have also been working behind the scenes on revamping our brand. We mentioned in our last newsletter to our subscribers, that we had a mid year analysis and we would be making plans towards the second half of the year.

It hasn’t been as speedy as we initially envisaged, but slow and steady wins the race after all, and we want to make sure we put out our best foot with our brand just as we do with our clients.

It is no longer news that online/international web payments have been a struggle from our side of the world, with banks implementing one limit or cancellation after the other. We are currently making findings as regards payment options for online transactions, and in our next post, we will have some information for you.

If you would like to get inside information and updates first hand, do subscribe to our newsletter here.

Thank you for reading this far. Till next time.

Having to lose accounts that have taken time and resources to build, or having to lose money and reputation, is unfortunate, which is why this post will show you a few steps you can and should take, to keep your social media and internet use, safe, as an individual, a business, or an influential person.

Firstly, if you notice that your account has been hacked, you should initiate a recovery process. This will involve n email or text being sent to you, with a recovery code.

Other things you can do include :

• report the account if it is a social networking site, then provide the necessary details and wait for them to take action.
• Constantly check your login activity and update passwords to stronger ones.
• Avoid using someone else’s phone, computer or tab to log into your socials.
• Use a two-factor authentication.
• Revoke access to third party apps.
• Only use your email addresses as response points for recovery codes and other correspondence with your networking apps.
• Fix your privacy settings where necessary. who can send a dm, leave a comment, etcetera.
• Don’t provide sensitive information on insecure sites. Secure sites have a padlock at the start of their url.
• Use dm filters to sift spam messages.
• Don’t click on random links, even if they come from a friend’s account. It’s best to confirm from that friend whether they sent you such links or they’ve been hacked.

While high tech hacking is still active, these steps, when done right, will protect you from cyber criminals on social media.

Social media and the internet at large has become a part of our lives that just can’t be ignored or pushed aside. It’s a major part of work, business, causes, socialization, leisure and so on.

While this makes a lot of things in daily life much easier, it also has become an avenue for criminals to operate. As with every environment you can find humans, there will almost always be the good, the bad and the ugly.

Since the majority of the world population is on one social media platform or the other, criminals have spread their wings across these mediums, and are taking advantage of the absence of physical contact, to perpetuate criminal offenses in variations.

These cybercrimes have one or more of the following effects on the victims; Physical threats, financial threats, emotional/mental threats, threat to reputation and business, etc. All online, all on the web.

Some common cybercrimes include:

• Computer/database hacking : bypassing your security walls and hacking into your device or page.
• Identity theft : making use of your name and personal information to get loans or other things.
• Catfishing/Internet fraud : pretending to be someone else online, to get you to provide information or money to them.
• Mass commenting/bot commenting : random, unrelated comments spamming your social media posts to disturb your work or get innocent people to click on their fake pages.
• Phishing : sending emails, texts, or dms, pretending to be from reputable companies or businesses, in order to convince individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
• Intellectual property theft : claiming ownership of, or using the ideas, inventions, and creative work, of individuals/companies without their knowledge.

In our next post, we’ll talk about how you can protect your self from these cybercrimes.

Till next time…

Things around the world have been raising individual and collective tension levels, and the state of the country presently is more frustrating.

Has your bank sent you the little memo about the new dollar payment limits on your debit card? We share in your disappointment. One can almost say the country is out to get business owners and people just trying to make their lives better.

Imagine wanting to pay for courses, tools, apps and so on, or wanting to pay for online ads, but you can’t because of the card limit..

The spending limit for dollar payment is now 20 dollars(about 10,000 naira) per month.

While there is an option for subscription to a dollar card, we can only hope and pray that the economic issues get better, especially in the foreign exchange aspect.

Keep in mind that it’s okay to take a break when you feel yourself burning out or getting overwhelmed

Other things you can do include:-

• Review the information you take in on a daily basis and try to filter out those things that contribute to overwhelm.
• Outsource when you have to.
• Most importantly, rest, and try to find the good things in your life.

Social Media Updates

In our social media updates this week,

1. Instagram:

• Instagram has introduced enhanced tags, to give creators room to receive credit for their work.

To use this new feature, when a post is made, you can tap on the ‘Tag People’ prompt, then click on ‘add tag’. After this, you get to select the creators you want to tag, and select ‘show profile category’ to show the role they played. E.g. Stylist, Photographer, Co writer, etc.

• Adam Mosserri mentioned that adding hashtags to posts won’t get your content more views, nor will it increase distribution. He did say that hashtags are more of a tool used to categorize content. This means our social media strategy must expand beyond visibility to engagement that matters such as comments, saves & shares.

2. Facebook

• Facebook is developing reactions for reels, as another way to respond to video content. This gives room for more engagement options.

3. Twitter

• Twitter is currently testing a new feature for spaces. They want to give an option to create audio clips of up to 30 seconds, which can be shared as a tweet with a link back to the full recording.

Sometimes, when you’re in doubt, just keep it simple and save your brand the trouble.

Hi there,

It’s been a minute hasn’t it? When it comes to special days that go across board in world view, you can bet on a trend to be right in the wake of such days.

International women’s day was about a week ago, the 8th of March, and social media was alive with posts relating to the theme, “Break The Bias”.

As with a lot of things gender and value related, one can expect a bit of controversy, especially with brands trying so hard to get social media right.

We would like to share a few things that came to mind amidst all the fuss that these IWD posts generated. Case in point, women’s day content and copy, by Hypo, First bank, WEMA, and ALAT.

• It is not compulsory to jump on all trends.
• Creativity is important, but what’s more important is the message you are sharing/passing across.
• When it comes to sensitive topics/trends, it’s sometimes best to remain neutral if you can’t find a clear way to convey your message.
• Not all traffic or buzz is good for business. If you believe that “at least the brand is trending” despite the trend being negative, is good for business goodwill and brand image, then you have some relearning to do.
• Lastly, sometimes, when you’re in doubt, just keep it simple.

You could easily break the bias by sticking to simple copies that would stand your brand out, instead of trying too hard to compete with others.

Social Media Updates

This week, we found two updates that everyone might not be fully aware of.

First, the Instagram poll sticker has been updated. Instead of the regular YES/NO in color we now have this, with an opinion to add a third option.

Secondly, while Facebook reels is now available globally, Instagram added an option to the highlights feature. So when you click on one of your highlights covers, instead of just seeing all the stories you added to a highlight, you can now convert them into a reel video.

We believe this will work even better for product based brands, as you can create new highlights as often as you wish, then convert into reels, showing each product as a reel, with the potential of reaching a wider audience compared to when it’s sitting only in your highlights. This can also work with posts from months or years back.

Well, that’s all for now. Talk to you soon.

Remember. keep it simple and smart.

Your Social Media companion.