HOW TO GROW YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE
How to grow your social media presence BUILDING UP YOUR AUDIENCE
How to grow your social media presence INSTAGRAM
With the world becoming more and more focused on the online world, there is a genuine demand for retailers to have an online presence - now more than ever. For retailers, you have to stand apart from the masses, and appeal to your demographic.
THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE (EVER-CHANGING) INSTAGRAM ALGORITHM
Selecting the correct social media channel that is in line with your demographic is essential to online success.
Rather than throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, be selective about your choice of social media and select a platform, or two, in line with your audience.
IMPORTANT TIP
Know who your demographic iskeep an eye on who is walking through the doors and who is picking up brochures.
For still imagery, capture any images in portrait. There’s no point taking any photos in landscape when most of the image will be cropped out! 02
Video is King. Instagram favours those who are posting a variety of content types - predominantly video. If you’re struggling to capture video content - put stills together as a video in Canva. 03
Younger demographics tend to gravitate towards platforms like TikTok, whilst more mature audiences prefer Instagram and Facebook.
We’ve learnt over time that our audience loves Instagram for aspirational content, whilst our retailers keep up to date with company goings on via LinkedIn.
Stay consistent. You’ve curated the perfect post, added that filter and selected the perfect trending audio - but the like count is still low. This is because Instagram favours returning accounts, so stick with it!
‘The Instagram algorithm is the rule book that any account swears by. It’s a set of rules that rank every single bit of content on the platform. It decides what content shows up, what order it appears in, and wherefrom the Explore page to the hashtag feed.’
How to grow your social media presence
BUILD A BANK OF CONTENT
IMPORTANT TIP “
Make sure that you have accompanying visual content that immediately catches the eye. Appeal to your audience, choose the right fonts and images, and you’ll have a brand identity that viewers will instantly associate with you.
How to grow your social media presence
CONTENT IDEAS
Keep your audience engaged with a variety of content
01
Tour your store. Great for Facebook - where you can hone in on that local audience, show your local audience around your showroom or give them a deepdive on a product. This adds a bit of personality to a plain feed.
02
Make use of professionally shot imagery. Use our retailer area to access our entire image library, and showcase what you have in store. Add your own twist by showing the instore display as an end frame.
roperrhodes.co.uk/retailer-login
Already have an account that you’ve been sporadically posting stills on once a fortnight? Don’t panic - there’s still plenty that you can to do to build up that following.
Rather than rush to post content now, spend the next month curating a bank of content and saving it in your drafts. Instagram loves User Generated Content, so ask any customers for before and after snaps that you can use (refer to our Copyright guidance), and try out some of the free Canva templates for Instagram videos. Once you have about a month’s worth of posts saved up (16 posts), you’re ready to go!
03
Show off your customers bathrooms! Users love to see inside people’s homes and get real-life inspiration. Ask your customers for a picture of their newly-renovated bathroom and showcase it on your feed.
The beauty of building up a bank of content, is that you can use your newly created posts across multiple platforms. If you’ve created some portrait Instagram reels - try them out on TikTok, if you’ve captured a showroom tour - post it on Facebook.
TRENDS
A key way to jump to the top of any feed, is to stay on top of the latest trends.
CHEAT SHEET
DID YOU KNOW?
Facebook is the most used social media platform, with over 2 billion daily users. Many younger users use the platform for brand research and to assess a brands trustworthiness, making it an essential platform for brands and retailers.
ACCEPTED MEDIA
Facebook has the broadest array of permitted media. You can use:
- Statuses
- Photos (landscape and portrait)
- Video
- Stories
For Pinterest, they’re currently loving Idea Pins.
For Instagram and TikTok reward content that uses trending audio
OPTIMISING YOUR PAGE
Make sure your page is as up-to-date as possible, with a profile photo, contact information, website link and business category tag. For an ultra-professional look, ensure you’ve tagged your location and be sure to tag any relevant partners - like fitters.
CONTENT STRATEGY
For Facebook, this is appealing to your local audience.
Remember, regular content is the best way to stay on top, but staying on trend will ensure you keep your content focused on the platform that you’re posting on.
Put simply, this is what you plan to post, and when you’ll post it. But rather than simply posting a quick status or photo when you feel like it, try mixing up your posts and posting a few times a week. Things like industry news, testimonials and promotions tend to fly on Facebook.
CHEAT SHEET BENEFITS
You can drive brand awareness, boost sales, build audience engagement and track it, all within one platform. It’s a great marketing tool for businesses, but it is also somewhere that your customers will expect to see younew customer’s trust a brand more if they see it online!
CHEAT SHEET IS IT FOR ME?
As long as your target market is on Pinterest, then yes, you should be there too! A lot of people think that Pinterest is only for those who want to pin food and wedding ideas, but home decor makes up a huge area of interest.
ACCEPTED MEDIA
Instagram is a visual media platform, but videos are currently favoured by the algorithm (this doesn’t mean you can’t post images though!).
Videos: max length of 10 minutes, at least 1080 x 1080 pixels
Photos: High definition, high quality imagery
COLLABORATIONS
Influencer marketing is a huge reason for using Instagram. Yes, cynics may laugh and roll their eyes, but the truth is that audiences will always trust what a person says about a brand more than anything the brand itself says. Increase your reach, boost engagement, and add an element of fun to your brand by collaborating!
CUSTOMER SERVICE
A lot of your customer base is likely to be on Instagram, so this is a great way to engage with customers and keep them happy. Reshare their positive review or Instagram story of your products. On the other hand, if a customer has queries or any issues, you can respond instantly.
PINNING TIPS
WHY SHOULD I BE ON THERE?
Pinterest is like a large, visual search engine - and it’s typically where audience’s look for inspiration in the research stage of a project. This means that those browsing Pinterest are wanting to buy, eventually. Pins will also get you more inbound clicks, as a Pin includes a link, you can highlight your own website. User engagement is incredibly high on Pinterest.
• Portrait imagery - 82% of users are on mobiles.
• Ultra high quality - avoid any pixelation.
• Subtle, tasteful branding - add your logo in an understated way.
• Descriptive copy - encourage users to click on links with strong descriptions.
PINS, FORMATS AND BOARDS
Group relevant pins together in boards, like ‘modern ensuites’, ‘green powder rooms’. Videos, carousels and idea pins are great for adding a twist to your existing content and maximising the imagery you have. Take a look at our page for inspiration!
