Social Media- Week Two
Social Media is my weakness, weakness meaning that I am really bad at it. I am useless at using instagram I dont even really have tik tok I am quite behind in that area.
I have spent a lot of time trying to understand the algorithm of Instagram I have read a lot of books and followed a lot of masterclasses and for me its just not working. I dont know if this is because my account has been inactive for such a long time, or I have the wrong keywords in my bio but I am just not generating enough traffic like I used to. When I had a look at my followers I realised that I had a lot of bots, for anyone who doesn't know what a bot is this is a instagram account that is essentially not human but run by a computer using bots is a instagram violation and I think this could be one of the reasons for my lack of profile traffic. I spent a whole evening going through my followers and deleting all the accounts that looked like bots I think in total I removed about 800+ accounts.
Instagram recently announced that they are moving away from being known as a photo sharing platform but focusing more on video content. When trying to tackle social media it is important to move with the changes (something that I do not do!) I have spent a lot of time doing some instagram learning and one of the best ways to get insights is to move away from the photo content and create reels as users engage with them much more. From time to time trends will occur within a reel this might be a audio trend or transition and jumping on the trend hype can increase your visibility and give you a extra chance of being featured on the explore page!
Its important that when you are exploring instagram to make use of all of the features. You can increase visibility by raising your engagement both from you and your users. It has been noted that before you create a post you should spend some time engaging on other instagram accounts to improve your insights when you post your own content. A simple like of a photo or reel is not going to cut it you need to be liking and commenting as well as taking part in engaging on others stories.
A great way to increase engagement on your page is to use instagram stories, as its quicker to flick through rather than scrolling through posts its more likely that someone new may end up on your page. It is one of the quickest ways to raise visibility on your account. Stories become most effective if you post on it daily, a tip when using stories is to tag your location this can target your audience and include a call to action. When others engage with your posts instagram will post your content more widely so use the sliding emojis score, create a poll and ask questions, anything to get your audience engaged will increase your chances of visibility and flag you to instagram.
Whichever feature you use on instagram be mindful of how long your reels or posts last, people tend to loose interest after about 3 seconds! So make sure you are showing your most valuable information first and getting straight to the point!
I am not giving up on instagram just yet I have learnt so many good tips from a company called the small business handbook as well as many others. I found the information an easy read with good quality content but maybe I need to address my own social media planning to enhance success.
A couple weeks ago I attended a conference called BET to support me in developing CPD in my new job. It was so insightful I love designing and building up a small business but I also love teaching and Education and the pedagogy behind it, looking at new ways that technology can be integrated to create a supportive learning space. During this conference I listened to a speech from Steven Bartlett, during my spare time I am obsessed with watching dragons den, the apprentice I learn so much from it.
There was one thing that Steven said that resonated with me and he mentioned something along the lines of 'there are two types of people those who lean in and those who lean out. Those who lean in are most likely to be successful they embrace change and accept the ever changing future.' It was at that moment I realised that I like to believe that I am a lean in person but actually in areas where I feel uncomfortable I tend to lean out such as those in social media, blogging and opening up.
So I am going to try and embrace the change. I can be very self conscious when it comes to social media I always worry what others are going to think, hate putting myself in the spotlight, I am even self conscious about posting this blog. I think thats why I have stayed away from tik tok but to progress I need to be open to it and this week I have been looking into tik tok masterclasses and setting up my account.
I sometimes struggle coming up with ideas for content and one thing I learned was to get others interested you need to learn what questions they are asking and address them. A great way to find out what questions people are asking is by searching topics on www.answerthepublic.com this will show you all the questions others have typed into google relating to your chosen topic, this has been a great starting point for when I want to create content or even just for research purposes.
Personally from what I have researched tik tok is over taking instagram so this is the space that I need to be in right now and I am going to try really hard to be more present on social media this week.
Quote of the week: Embrace change, be your authentic self and the rest will fall into place.