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Step Up Your Social Ep. 11 — 10 Tricks And Hacks To Step Up Your Instagram Stories

5/22/2019

Instagram Stories just keep getting more popular. Over 500 million people now use them every... single... day!

And their functionality keeps growing as well.

In this episode of #StepUpYourSocial, we cover ten tips, tricks, hacks and strategies that you should be using to take your Instagram Story game to the next level.

We cover:

Growing your reach by tagging location, hashtags and other accounts
Using Stories to create and foster User Generated Content
Using stickers to directly engage your audience
Increasing a post's reach by sharing it to your Stories
Creating solid and transparent overlays
Linking your Story to additional content
Creating drop shadow text
Getting your stickers, gifs or text to move along with your video
And a whole lot more!

Are there any tricks or hacks you like that we didn't cover?
We want to hear them!

Share them in the comments, hit us up on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, or share them online them using the hashtag #StepUpYourSocial.

Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

Step Up Your Social Ep. 10 — Facebook Wants You To Know What Your Competitors Are Doing... So Does Google

4/19/2019

Don’t you wish you had a magic wand you could use to see what your competitors were doing well, so that you could grow your own business accordingly?

Facebook has a free feature, available to all Facebook Brand pages, that might as well be a magic wand. Yet so few brands are taking advantage of this simple, powerful and important feature.

So let’s dig into Facebook’s “Pages To Watch.”

Afterward, we’ll cover some other helpful and free tools you should be using to keep tabs on your competitors across the internet, including mailing lists, other social channels and the almighty Google Alerts.

Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

Step Up Your Social Ep. 9 — Why Warren Buffet Is A Better Writer Than You

3/26/2019

Warren Buffet is a better writer than you for one simple reason: he knows his audience and he writes directly for them. Are you doing the same?

Don't write your content for "the world," rather write it for an individual. Don't try to make yourself *sound* smart. Try to make your reader *feel* smart.

This episode covers some takeaways from Social Media Marketing World 2019 and pulls from a great presentation given by Ann Handley, the author of Everybody Writes.

Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

Step Up Your Social Ep. 8 — Social Media Acronyms You Should Know

3/5/2019

Step Up Your Social Podcast

Step Up Your Social Ep. 8

Social media can be an overwhelming place, especially when you feel like you don't speak the language.

You’re scrolling through your social channels and you see a bunch of random letters tacked together — TIL, FWIW, IMHO — it can be hard to even know where to start.

So in this episode we cover a list of social media acronyms you should know. This list is neither meant to be exhaustive nor fully up-to-date (since internet language is constantly evolving!).

But in the meantime, you should probably know all of these acronyms if you want to keep up with your customers and your audience.

AFAIK
AMA
BTW
DM/PM
FF
FTW
FWIW
HT or H/T
IIRC
ICYMI
IDK
IRL
MT
NSFW
PT
ROFL
SMH
TBT/FBF
TL;DR
TFTF
TFW
TIL
YMMV

Any we missed? Tweet them at us using #StepUpYourSocial. In the meantime, HTH (Hope This Helps!).

NOTE: This list was modified from a previous blog post I wrote which you can find here.

Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

Step Up Your Social Ep. 7 — Beware Engagement Bait... You Could Be Limiting Your Reach on Facebook

2/19/2019

SUYS Engagement Bait Podcast

Step Up Your Social Ep. 7

There are 5 keywords that, when used in a post on Facebook, automatically limit your post's reach. Facebook has labeled the tactic in question as "Engagement Bait."

While Engagement Bait first started being penalized in the Facebook algorithm over a year ago, Facebook just recently began applying their penalties to video content, as well as to text.

In this episode, we cover the what, the why and the how of Engagement Bait, as well as some tips for avoiding it.

Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

Step Up Your Social Ep. 6 — Stop Inviting Everyone You Know To Like Your Facebook Page

2/5/2019

social media podcast

Step Up Your Social Ep. 6

You start a new Facebook brand page. It's only natural to invite everyone you know to like the page.

The problem is, you're actually hurting your page's future growth when you invite people who like you — but don't care about your brand — to like your Facebook brand page.

In this episode:
• We dive into the Facebook algorithm
• Talk about the difference between "good" and "bad" likes
• Cover helpful tips to grow your page with the right audience
• The importance of using a brand page for your page (as opposed to a personal account)
• And a whole lot more

Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

Step Up Your Social Ep. 5 — Are You Displaying Your Handles Everywhere?

1/23/2019

Social Media Podcast, Step Up Your Social

Step Up Your Social Ep. 5

Are you leaving low hanging fruit on the table? Are you missing opportunities to encourage your current customers, fans or audience to start conversations with you online, thus promoting your brand to their own networks in the process?

In this episode, we cover two inter-related topics: the importance of displaying your handles *everywhere* your audience is and the vital role that engagement plays in creating and managing a beneficial social media program.

Never forget — social media is not a tool to speak TO the people. It’s a tool to speak WITH the people. The goal is to have conversations and to build relationships.

Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

Step Up Your Social Ep. 4 - The Power of Microtargeting with Facebook Ads

1/8/2019

Facebook Advertising Audiences

Step Up Your Social Ep. 4

If you run ads on Facebook without first building quality audiences, it's like you're standing in the street, throwing expensive flyers in the air, and hoping for the best.

Facebook offers you the opportunity to microtarget based on tons of different factors.

In this episode, we talk about the importance of microtargeting.

We will also cover the three different Facebook advertising audience types:
• Custom
• Lookalike and
• Saved

We'll cover what they are, how to build them, and why you should be using them to run ads on Facebook.

If you enjoy this this podcast, please consider reviewing it on iTunes. Thanks for tuning in!

Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

Step Up Your Social Ep. 3 - A Deep Dive Into Stories

12/26/2018

Step Up Your Social - A Social Media Podcast

Step Up Your Social Ep. 3

"Stories" are the Facebook response to Snapchat — fun, quirky bits of content that disappear after 24 hours.

Throughout the Facebook Universe — WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and Messenger, people are currently sharing over a billion stories every day!

Instagram Stories alone has over 400 million daily active users — more than twice as many as Snapchat.

Stories have all kinds of fun and interesting capabilities built directly into the platform.

In this episode of Step Up Your Social, we cover the what, the when and the how of Stories along with a bunch of tips, tricks and fun things you should try.

Listen today and let us know if you have any questions, or anything to add to the conversation around this fun topic!

Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

Step Up Your Social Ep. 2 - Twitter Lists

12/17/2018

Step Up Your Social - A Social Media Podcast

Step Up Your Social Ep. 2

In episode 2 of #StepUpYourSocial, we tackle the important subject of Twitter lists.

One common complain about Twitter is that the platform can feel chaotic. Twitter lists are how you make order out of that chaos.

They serve as an amazing listening tool, whether or not your brand is active on Twitter.

Throughout the episode we cover:

How to build or subscribe to lists
The types of lists you should be using
The difference between public and private lists
Using the free tool Tweetdeck to more easily build and manage your Twitter lists
And much more.

The episode is available now. Listen here or wherever you listen to podcasts. That's right — we are now live across the podcast universe! Find us iTunes or the Google Play store, on Stitcher, Overcast, Spotify... If we aren't available yet in your podcast player of choice, let us know and we'll look into rectifying that.

That's for listening. Subscribe today and then get back to telling your story!

Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.