@thesocialteacup

LET’S 👏 DO 👏 THIS 👏

🤘🏽STOP FOLLOWING EVERYONE 🤘🏽 Why you should not follow absolutely everyone on your Instagram business account (even if you know them!)... 1️⃣ It looks spammy! If you have 1000 followers but you are following 5000, it kind of gives the impression that you more focused on vanity metrics than creating relationships. 2️⃣ It affects you interacting with the accounts you want to connect and build relationships with as their content gets lost in the scroll! 3️⃣ People who are on their social game may block you to stop you following them as your following too many people for their content to stand a chance of being seen by you and this affects THEIR reach!! 4️⃣ What’s the point? You are not cultivating an audience who will become your community. 5️⃣ It signals to potential clients and customers that your content is boring, otherwise all these people would follow you back. (It doesn’t always work like that but the thought comes to mind. 6️⃣ Following too many accounts can become distracting and lead you to endlessly scrolling when you should be focusing on growing your business! Not 1000s of personal accounts! SO 🧐 how many accounts SHOULD we be following, to maintain professional?? Depending on your following, location, status as a business (start up or established), there is no set number but I would recommend keeping the number of accounts you follow between 400-800 depending on the size of your account. So now think about... How many accounts am I following? Are they all my target audience? And even if they are, do I NEED to see their content? Is it helping my business in any way? Do I want to build a relationship? Or is it okay for them to just follow me and enjoy my content? Consider this, then downsize if you feel it’s right to do so. Are you following so many people you don’t even know who’s in there? 🤭 Share your thoughts below... ✨

📱SELLING IN STORIES 💰 1️⃣ Keep highlights 95% sales themed There’s a lot of talk about keeping your feed professional and going full party mode in your stories. 🤦🏻‍♀️ I don’t agree, 😏 I think stories can show a less polished side of your business but they shouldn’t be more more focused on your personal life than your business. (That’s what you’re personal account is for! 😉) I would even go as far to say that it is fine to show up on a personal level in stories when you have something very exciting to share (pregnancy/AMAZING holiday) BUT do not dedicate whole story highlights for each event. Your highlights are promotional gold + need to focus on what you are selling 95% of the time or you are missing out on SALES!💰 2️⃣ Have a highlight for each product Make it easy for your potential customers to find exactly what they are looking for by highlighting each product or range on its own icon. You wouldn’t buy from a website which has everything all clumped together on one page because time is of the essence! ⏰ Keep the icons updated so you are not promoting old stock or bikinis in the Christmas season. 👙 3️⃣ Show up DAILY on your stories You don’t have to show up personally or hard sell in every story but there is nothing wrong with showing off your products, your latest range, your customer reviews and so on. 👍 This helps to build trust and get your products in the minds of the people who may buy them. 4️⃣ Use Countdown stickers Countdown stickers are great for sales as they create a sense of urgency and excitement around your offer. Potential buyers can choose to be notified when the offer is drawing to an end which later sends a notification to them! This first helps you collect in interested people and then it gives your offer a boost by reminding them to go and buy! Genius! 🤓 5️⃣ Use Polls + Question stickers Use these for market research and to help you get people thinking about your products. You can indirectly ask them which ones they would want to buy by asking them which ones are their favourite and so on. This helps promote your products + make sales. 💵 How many of these methods of selling do you use? Tell me below...👇

BLACK FRIDAY BUNDLE 🦇 For a limited time, you can purchase my Engagement Ebook along with an Instagram Stories BONUS for only £20.99! 👀 ENGAGEMENT EBOOK 🗝 Are you only getting a few likes on your posts or struggling to build a community on Instagram? Have you lost your love for it a little or your direction and this is affecting your engagement? Or do you just need a bit more of a structure in place to build up your account again? If this resonates then this ebook is for you! INSTAGRAM STORIES GUIDE 📱 Especially for this bundle, I have created a mini guide to making beautiful Instagram stories. This guide covers how to create stories that stand out, how to utilise all of the different features, find GIFs and effects which compliment your business, how to make them on brand + much more! Head over to the link in my bio to bag your bundle before the offer expires! You won’t regret it! 🖤

💀 BLACK FRIDAY 🚨 Okay, I really feel like I need to share this post. This month has been all about trust + alignment for me and to mindlessly go along with all of this without voicing my opinion just feels all wrong + a bit 🥴 around the edges, so here we go... When we are out of sorts, fearful or feeling anxious we are more likely to hoard resources. Black Friday feeds on this and creates this FOMO and pressure around purchasing things that you probably wouldn’t even buy if it wasn’t so shoved in your face. This pressure to buy not only puts pressure on the consumer (who I feel may be extra vulnerable this year due to Covid/lockdown/loss of earnings/loss of work/loss of human connection) but also on the seller. Big corporate brands can afford to sell their mass-produced stock at a stupidly low rate, if it means they can win the majority of the sales. Smaller businesses can not. Their products are not mass-produced and are often handmade which means that they are also more ethical and eco-friendly in comparison, yet they cannot compete on this weekend of greed. This weekend I will be offering a discount on my ebook to make it accessible for more people BUT this ebook is a digital product, I did not hand-make every individual product. So I guess what I am trying to say is, there is much more to fulfilling a need (which is why we buy) than the price - it’s all in the energy behind the product and the impact it has on your life, the person who created it and the world that we all coexist in. I’m not trying to be preachy. I also buy crap that I don’t need (I am trying not to) but more than ever this year I feel like we need to support the good in the world the small businesses that bring life to our cities + communities. 🤍

A mini guide ✍🏼 on optimising your Instagram for SALES in time for CHRISTMAS. 🎄 Swipe across to reveal this little gift from me to you! 🎁

There is no one size fits all. 👡 “Post every single day” “Do not share your personal life” “Show up in your stories daily” These are all guides, not the be all and end all. We all have to assess individually what we want and what resources we have to make that happen. Sometimes it can feel like every single person, coach, account is telling you what you should be doing BUT these are only guidelines, not doctrine. The best strategies are the ones designed with you and your business in mind that work for you, not against you. Yes you do need to post consistently to build a community. Yes you should try and utilise the methods for optimising your account for sales etc but you don’t have to do every single thing that everyone posts on their feed. 😬 What are your thoughts on this?

WOW! Searchable Captions! 👀 We can now search for content with key words and find any posts that include these key words in their captions! ☕️ This is so cool! So make sure when you post content that you include your key words in both your captions + your hashtags for maximum reach! Thank you to @pinkstormsocial for being the one to reveal this! 😘 Enjoy this gem 💎 of an Instagram update! What will your key words be?

Hashtags like these KILL ME 💀 If your following (real life supporters in a virtual world) is not in the millions + your engagement is average to low - Your content is NOT going to be seen on these tags. Always opt for smaller tags for better visibility - so ones with at least 1000 posts already using them. 🔖 There is much more to it, but reducing the sizing is a great place to start on a journey to becoming SEEN by your ideal audience. Here is a little activity.... 📖 1️⃣ Go to your last post 2️⃣ Look at the hashtags you posted 3️⃣ How many HUGE ones are there? 4️⃣ Comment below how many! PS. If these large tags make up most of your hashtag list I bet your reach from hashtags is pretttyyyy low - why not take a peak at your post insights + see! 🔮 Double tap if you found this funny/helpful/mildly amusing as a social media meme

Susan, I need some ME time. 🙄

Do Engagement Pods actually work?🕯Well I guess it depends what you are looking for... to grow a business or to appear to have more engagement? 📿

Replying to stories is the ONE.🕯 Never stop commenting on other people’s posts, that’s how we show love and support for one another. BUT if you are not replying to the stories of potential clients + customers to form a connection with them then you are missing a trick. How often do you reply to people’s stories? How do you feel when someone replies to yours? 🐇