These may look completely legitimate, with many of these profiles having a Facebook logo as their profile picture, a name such as “Business and Strategy” and messages tending to be captioned with something similar to “Important Notice Regarding Permanent Deletion of Your Page”. 

Many of these messages are sent from people who claim to be a “representative of Facebook” and go on to list several dates and times when your profile has been allegedly reported for copyright or discrimination reasons, later asking you to click on a link to ‘review’ these reports. Below is an example of just how real these messages can appear:

It is very important to emphasise here that these messages are not legitimate, they are spam messages and a clever new way for scammers to target unsuspecting people, enticing them to enter personal information via unsafe website links. Do not click on these links, no matter how convincing these messages may appear.

Spam involves contacting people with unwanted content or requests and can spread by clicking these unsafe links that you may be finding in your message inbox, jeopardising your privacy and business information.

If you have been finding these messages have been making their way into your personal or business Facebook inboxes, always keep your guard up and practise the following:

1)     Never accept an invitation from someone you do not know.

2)     Be suspicious of messages that claim to be from Facebook, especially those that encourage you to leave the site by clicking on an external link.

3)     Block the person who sent the message and report the message to Facebook within Messenger.

4)     Regularly change and update your passwords, and do not use the same one across multiple sites.

5)     Enable automatic updates on your laptop or desktop to help prevent phishing attempts through the software of your device.

If you are ever unsure of any messages that you may receive or have any doubt about their legitimacy, please do contact us for any help and reassurance. We can take a look at the message, as well as show you more about what to look for when it comes to spam messages.

For more information about managing spam on Facebook, you can take a look at the official Facebook advice here, or if you think you may have received and clicked on a suspicious message in the past, take a look at the guidance on what to do in this instance here.

If you’d like to learn more about how MiHi Digital can help your business grow, get in touch with Mark at the Team!

Call us on 01566 232323 or email hello@mihidigital.co.uk 

The post Facebook Spam Messages: What to out look for appeared first on MiHiDigital.

But if that isn’t enough, here are a few more reasons why you should be taking full advantage of social media for small businesses…

·      It gives you the potential to reach and attract new customers.

·      You get to know your customers.

·      You get a better understanding of your competitors.

·      You will build your brands awareness.

·      You can connect with your customers and build trustworthy relationships.

That being said, it’s a huge task if you’re not that way inclined, so we’ve pulled together a few top tips to get you started:

Top tip number one: Plan ahead!

We often hear that business owners and employees just don’t have time to be posting on social media every day, which let’s face it is completely understandable. Or they say it’s easier to spend a little bit of time every day, making something up on the spot and posting for the sake of posting. But trust us when we say that’s not doing you or your business any favours, and often ends up being more time-consuming and stressful in the long run.

Having a calendar gives you the time to find out what your customers really want from your social media, and what’s valuable to them. Just test out some different messaging in your calendar, this is called A/B testing and shows what messages work best with your particular audience, find what works and build from that! 

So, avoid the last-minute scrambling and plan ahead with a social media calendar. We’ve written a whole blog about why and how to start your own social media calendar here – Top Tips for Creating Your Social Media Calendar

Top tip number two: Schedule your posts!

Now that you’ve got your plans in your calendar, get ahead of the game and get scheduling. Not only does this free up your time by scheduling a block of social media content all at once but it also means that you can focus on the other important tasks in your week, without having to worry about what picture to post later.

There are lots of free and paid scheduling tools online to help you, including our personal favourite, the Mata Planner for Instagram and Facebook. Most of these tools make your life easier and show you when to post when your followers are online too! But if you use a tool without this feature, it’s always a good start to aim for 7pm in the evening when everyone has settled down into their socials, or 7am in the morning when people are having a morning scroll. But remember to keep an eye out when planning ahead, things change quickly in the world of business and you need to make sure your content is still relevant.

Top tip number three: Keep track of what’s working!

There’s only one way to tell if you’re getting results and that’s by checking your analytics. Even for small businesses, knowing what works and what doesn’t will be super valuable for when you’re working on your next set of content.

All social media will show some form of analytics, so take the time to understand it and try to replicate the content they’re loving! – repurpose it for other platforms e.g.

Top tip number four: Pay attention to trends!

Trends are trends for reason, so give the people what they want and get involved with a few if they are appropriate for your brand.

Although be wary, don’t just jump on every bandwagon you see on Tik Tok, if you’re a serious health brand your customers probably won’t want to see you risking damage doing the Kylie Jenner lip challenge, for example.

Top tip number five: Be social!

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, social media is meant to be social! So, once you’re done planning your content, make sure you’re spending time replying to comments as timely as possible, reacting, commenting, and sharing other relevant posts. Take half an hour out of your day every day and you’ll see the extra engagement for your accounts too, it’s a great way to get to know your customers, plus you can have a quick nosey at your competitors to see what they’re up to – Win, win!

And one last extra tip! Be consistent! The more you drop in and out, the fewer people will see your posts, so take the time to get ahead with your scheduling and watch your reach boom! 

If you want to know more about how MiHi Digital can help your business grow on social media, then get in touch with the team!

Call us on 01566 232323 or email hello@mihidigital.co.uk.

The post 5 Tips to Successfully Use Social Media for Small Businesses appeared first on MiHiDigital.

If you’re creating content sporadically, not only is this taking your time, but you’re probably seeing a few more typos than you’d like and maybe even a change in tone across your platforms which ultimately isn’t the best look for your business. So, planning ahead and creating a social media calendar would be a much better use of your time as well as giving you the opportunity to proof your posts before those blasted keyboard warriors pick up on every typo or inaccuracy in the book.

What the heck is a social media calendar?

By creating a social media calendar, you’ll be able to plan your posts, manage whole campaigns and give yourself some sort of structure for creating content that week, or that month if you’re feeling brave! It’s also a good place to find any gaps in your media library that might need filling.

Depending on what floats your boat you could be setting up your calendar in a spreadsheet or in Google Calendar or some sort of over-expensive social media management tool. But our favourite is the Meta Planner because it gets the job done and even better, it’s free!

So, where to start when creating your social media calendar?

A good place is to take a proper look through your current social media profiles. See what kind of content worked before (and what didn’t) then have a good nosey at some of your competitors to see what they’re up to because odds are, you can use their ideas for some inspiration.

Next, you need to think about what social media platforms you want to focus on, do you have a photogenic, hands-on business that would work perfectly on Instagram and Facebook? Or are you more of a B2B organisation that would have value in Twitter and LinkedIn? Remember, you can start small and build up to more as you learn more about your audience and customers.

What should you be including in your calendar?

Well, this totally depends on what your business needs for example a small business might need a few details and a picture whereas a big organisation may need full tracking links budgets and management approval. but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, it’s likely that you’ll just need the basics like:

·      The platform you’re posting to

·      The date and time you’re posting

·      Your caption

·      Any media – images or videos (or a link to where they’re stored)

·      Or just a link to an already published post or webpage.

If you wanted to go into more detail, you could label what your posts are, remembering the social media rule of thirds:

·      1/3 of your content should be relevant news and tips that are beneficial for your followers.

·      1/3 of your content should be promoting your product or service.

·      1/3 of your content should be interacting with others and be personal.

Now fill that calendar with some crackin’ ideas!

Start with noting your ideas for each day and build those into captions, then plan how you’re going to create the media for your posts.

Take note, it’s always a good idea to proof your calendar with another member of your team too, just remember to schedule your posts in when they’re ready!

And that’s it, we make it sound so simple right? As with everything social media, the more you do, the more you learn about your audience and the easier it will be to get that spot-on content in your calendar!

If you want to know more about how MiHi Digital can help your business grow on social media, then get in touch with the team!

Call us on 01566 232323 or email hello@mihidigital.co.uk.

The post Top Tips for Creating Your Social Media Calendar appeared first on MiHiDigital.

Instagram and YouTube have a more varied audience
For most businesses, Instagram and YouTube provide a better target market. TikTok has been dominated by Gen Z since its launch and that is showing no signs of changing. This is great news if your business is targeted at Gen Z but bad news if it isn’t. The limited audience range makes it difficult to promote your business, whilst in comparison, Instagram and YouTube have a varied user base so no matter how niche your business is, you’ll be able to find an audience for what you offer.

Instagram and YouTube are more business friendly
TikTok is widely known for its informal and light hearted content with trends and dances becoming particularly popular. This means there is less scope for selling products and services effectively, particularly when you compare it to Instagram and YouTube which actively make it easier to sell your products/services through features like clickable links. Whilst you can of course use trending audios and take part in challenges, the chances are that very few of these are going to be suitable for your business.

Instagram offers more format options
Chances are when it comes to your products or services, you need to get a certain amount of information across. This is where Instagram and YouTube can reign supreme over TikTok. Both these platforms allow you to post longer format videos, letting you get all the information across whereas TikTok is more geared to short, snappy content. Instagram also gives you more options on how you’d like to present your content, including images, stories, longer captions, reels and videos. This makes it easier to create varied content that will appeal to a wider audience, as some people will prefer image content over video.

Instagram and YouTube deliver better results
Whilst it can be tempting to focus all your energy on TikTok videos because of its popularity, the goal of any business’s social media is to increase brand awareness and revenue. For most businesses, lead generation on TikTok is going to be significantly smaller because the target market is not going to be as wide as Instagram or YouTube. That’s why we recommend focusing social media marketing efforts on Instagram or YouTube, ahead of TikTok.

Whilst there are pros to using TikTok and it does have a large user base, the core issue with it is that for most businesses, their target audience is not going to be on it. You may get video views but if they’re not engaging with your business, endless views aren’t going to help you.

Struggling with social media and need help with your digital marketing strategy? Give us a call on 01566 232323 or email us at hello@mihidigital.co.uk

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All these factors impact when they are online and when you should therefore be posting.

We spend more time outside during the summer

It’s light outside, hopefully warm (it was very warm this summer) and it’s not raining (again we did have a drought this time around!). So ask yourself, when are your followers most likely to be online? The answer is, of course, later in the evening than they would be during the winter. 

That’s precisely why Facebook will suggest you post at 7pm each day, as people are starting to come inside and move their starey gaze to their phone or tablet (yep some people do still use those for things other than placating their children from time to time).

But what about the winter?

Winter can be quite a vague term, so for the purpose of this blog post, we are referring to ‘winter’ as when the clocks go back (we do know this makes winter seem like quite a long haul but bear with us on this one!).

We’re using this definition because the moving of the clocks does have a significant impact on the overall timing of your post-publication (and if it doesn’t then it should!). That’s because people will more readily be inside from 5pm – purely because it’s dark outside (and cold, wet, windy…. You get the picture!).

So what do you need to do?

Try tweaking your social media timing by posting earlier in the evenings once Halloween is over, purely because if you don’t, your post will be closer to bedtime (we’re saying this is 10 – 11pm for most), which gives it less time to mature and reach more people during day one, which is a vital time for any social media post (engagement is almost always significantly lower the day after the day of posting).

Whilst there is no golden rule for posting as every page has a unique set of followers, it is a good bet to trial this once those clocks do go back. Match these new timings with some post momentum and you’re setting yourself up for a win! 

And remember…. Days get longer after 21^st December… and it might be warm next year too!

The post The clocks have going back – what does that mean for your social media timing? appeared first on MiHiDigital.

One of the most common hijack techniques is to create a fake account using your business branding and details, then going through to comment on your posts to “announce a winner” and asking for your followers’ bank details. The main issue is these people are acting as you, with your business name on their profile, it’s easy for entrants to get confused or worse still, send them their personal information and being de-frauded. Obviously, this is a horrible way for your potential new customers to interact with your brand, 

They might even try sending friend requests and messages to accounts who have entered your competition asking for the same information, pretending to be you! So it’s essential to be aware of these risks and plan how to deal with an attempted hijack. 

What can you do to stop it?

The number one rule… Stay vigilant – keep a keen eye on the comments. If you see anything you know to be a scam account, or people asking the wrong questions, just delete it. That’s the best way to stop your followers from seeing their comments, so be on it! Highlight at the outset and in other posts that you won’t ask for this type of information.

If it does happen, put a clear message out there to say that it’s not you and ask them to report the profile or page to Facebook. Reporting is the ultimate way to stop the spamming of your competition.

So, to protect your competition and its entrants, keep an eye out, be observant and ask people to report as soon as you know there is an issue.

Don’t let these risks put you off running a competition for your followers, the pros far out way the cons, so find a good prize and get it out there! Just be aware and protect your followers! 

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Using more than five images on a post:

Adding five or more images to a post automatically turns it into a gallery for them to click on – and as humans we do love clicking on things (research shows the larger a button the more likely it is to be clicked!). Once they’ve clicked on it, they’re going to get a light box – that’s when the image is the only thing that is on their screen! This means there’s no news feed distractions, there’s more engagement… And it lasts longer… Win, win, win!

Getting the timing right:

Posts go further when they gain Facebook engagement (likes, comments and shares) as soon as possible after they’re posted. Just like other things in life…. they need a little momentum to gain that, think about when your target market is going to be online; and also bear in mind that every page is different. If you’ve got a holiday cottage complex that’s perfect for parents, they’re likely to have different lifestyles and timings to others. A general rule of thumb can be early evening or tea time, but do always test and work out what’s best for your own following.

Including a link to click on:

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, we love to click on things! So if you don’t ask them to click, or you don’t give them the opportunity to, then you’re likely, if not certain, to miss out. Don’t let them off the hook (fishing puns rarely work but we’re going with it)…add a link in and give them a good reason to click on it. 

Getting the tone right:

There’s nothing worse than a post that’s written as a post! Write it as yourself and sound like yourself. The best brands on Facebook or Instagram are not only the ones that have great content for their target market, they are also the ones that are the most authentic. That ultimately comes from your personality – so don’t start posting like you’re a robot…. Keep it real, keep it you.

Ask for engagement! 

That could be asking for them to share, to comment, or to like…. No matter what it is, you’re definitely not getting it if you don’t ask for it! Remember when we said that posts travel further when they are engaged with quickly? This also helps with that… it’s a double whammy! 

Competitions…

Competitions are a fantastic way of increasing Facebook engagement and reach, because you know what? We all know we need to be in it to win it! The only thing you need to consider is how much your prize is worth (don’t go too high and don’t go too low) and also watch out for competition spammers… We’ve got a post coming up on those pesky people real soon….  

Have an extra one… Call us! 

We’re going to boost our ego a bit here… But we’ve helped a huge amount of our clients sky-rocket their social media engagement, so why not see how we can help you? 

Give us a call on 01566 232 323 or email hello@mihidigital.co.uk

The post Facebook engagement – 6 easy ways you can give your posts a boost appeared first on MiHiDigital.

So if you have a business in Devon or Cornwall and you’re wanting to get the most bang for your posting buck, when is it that you should be posting?

Try searching for the answer online and you’ll be met with hundreds of blogs, many based on unfounded research and conflicting comments from every country other than the UK.

Why? Because, not unsurprisingly, one size doesn’t fit all, so here are some factors you should be considering…

Lifestyle

Generally, people around the world tend to have similar lifestyle patterns, with work and weekends two of the major factors.

What do you do when you have free time; visit friends, go out for dinner with family, check Facebook? For many, it’s the first thing to be done when you wake up, during the commute to work, have a quick browse at lunchtime and then a cheeky evening scroll of the newsfeed when you get home or are watching telly on the sofa. Before you know it, the evening’s gone and you’ve spent the whole time on Facebook!

It’s during these times you should be posting. Statistics show:

• Posts made on weekdays between 1-2pm are likely to get most shares.
• Posts made at 3pm usually gain the most clicks.
• Posts made between 5/6pm and 10pm gain the highest levels of engagement.
• With the weekend in sight, people are happiest on Thursdays and Fridays, meaning posts apparently gain more positive engagement than on any other day (especially a Monday!).
• Posts made on Saturday and Sunday gain 32% more engagement than those made at the same time on a weekday.

The perfect post time?

4pm on Sundays are the top performers!

Location

The only complication to this is if you’re trading internationally, in which case you’ll need to be varying your content, message and delivery time, related to the time zone difference. As an example, if you’re trying to hit the east coast of America then our lunchtime is the start of their working day, in turn meaning that a post sent out at 3am in the morning in the UK is going to be right in the middle of the east coast evening and a great time to be posting to those people.

Scheduling those tweets is going to be a god send to anyone that likes to sleep!

Who are you targeting?

Your target market is also going to impact on when you post.

If your business provides or offers services to other businesses, you’ll not only want to think about whether Facebook is the right channel for you, you’ll also want to be posting when decision makers are most likely to be online. So when is it they’re going to be doing that? During evenings (think later than the consumer market but not so late as to push it past bedtime!) and weekends, when they eventually get away from work.

Consumer focussed? It’s a lot easier to reach them, as long as you consider their lifestyle, which brings us nicely onto our next point!

Facebook for your business

Although the timing of your posts helps, the ultimate success will depend on the quality. Does it feature interesting content, an image, link to your website, a call to action? All these things work in harmony with each other to form the perfect post.

You can monitor the performance of your posts through online analytics programmes such as Fanpage Karma. Meanwhile, Google Analytics will tell you how much traffic your posts are directing to your website.

What are you waiting for? Get out there, and get posting!

For more information on how we can help you build a better Facebook presence for your business, call 01566 232323 or email hello@mihidigital.co.uk

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When Facebook launched ‘News Feed’ in 2006, it was simply a place where you could see a selection of latest updates from friends, family, and that person you went to school with 5 years ago. Now it has evolved to become a bustling social centre packed with all kinds of posts; including a few too many videos of that old school friend’s kid.

From status updates, latest news, business ads, games and online sales, there are more posts jostling for space on the News Feed than ever before, so who decides what you see and when? Facebook of course! The social media giant has come up with some clever algorithms that ensure there’s a healthy mix of posts on a person’s News Feed at all times.

They know that no one wants a News Feed filled with Candy Crush news and businesses selling their services, so they’re making sure we all have a balanced diet of posts when we log on.

Two months ago, Facebook revealed it was building a ‘better’ News Feed having admitted they never imagined today’s challenge of there being too much information for any person to consume. When doing this, they always refer to their set of ‘core values’, meaning the News Feed never loses touch with why it was founded in the first place. The main value is ‘friends and family come first’, a priority for the social media giant. They also value information, entertainment, authenticity (we’re talking minimal spam posts and misleading stories), and user control.

In keeping with these values, Facebook announced it was further reducing Clickbait as part of the improvements for the News Feed, particularly by targeting misleading stories.

If you’ve ever found yourself navigating away from the News Feed because your attention has been grabbed by a headline like ‘You’ll never believe what David Cameron has been doing in Cornwall…’ only to find out he built a sandcastle on holiday, you’ll know what we’re talking about. It’s this style of Clickbait that Facebook is cutting out. They’ll be using a system similar to how an email spam filter works, prioritising more of what you want to see and placing it higher up on your feed.

Although you may not notice any significant changes to your News Feed, you can sleep easy at night knowing Facebook is working away behind the scenes to ensure your Facebook experience is as enjoyable as ever!

Find out more about how we can improve your social media here or call the team on 01566 232323.

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Many businesses means much competition; as with most things in life, those doing it well will grow and strive forward, those doing it poorly or as an after thought will spend much time and never fully reap the potential dividends.

Here’s the five most common Facebook errors we see:

Setting up your business up as a profile and not a page.

Profiles are for people and pages are for businesses, groups, people of interest and basically anything that isn’t you as a person!

How do you know if you’ve got this wrong?

If you see the number of likes you have, it’s a page! You’ve got it right!

If you can’t then it isn’t (assuming you’re looking in the right place of course!)

Your business should always be set up as a page and not a profile; we’ve known of Facebook writing to those that have got it inadvertently wrong and on occasion removing the profile.

A page is fundamentally different from a profile and will give you a platform from which to promote and share your business, which brings us on to advertising…..

Advertising to everybody

Facebook has an incredible amount of information on its users.

If you’re going to be spending your hard earned money on Facebook advertising then you want to make sure you’re reaching the right people.

We’ve heard tales of gaining 1,000’s of likes in a short period of time, sometimes in a matter of just a few days.

Sounds fantastic doesn’t it?

This is almost definitely unfocussed advertising; reaching everybody, everywhere no matter if they’re going to be interested or not.

We all love big numbers but we draw the line way before paying for a larger number to be written on our Facebook page!

Remember that 100 active and engaged Likes are certain to have a greater value than 5,000 that will never engage or be interested in you.

If you advertise to people that won’t give you value all you’re doing is paying to have a larger number on your page.

Letting your advertising run and run

So you’ve avoided error number two and you’ve targeted the right people with the right message.

That’s it? Job done? Just leave it and reap the perennial gains surely?

After a certain period your advertising campaign will become stale and the rewards you gain from it will diminish. Think of it this way, if you’ve seen the same advert repeatedly how often do you click on it and show interest after the 10th time you’ve seen it?

There is a case for repeated brand exposure here but lets for this example focus on the definitive return, which will be decreasing.

Don’t believe us? Check your stats!

Make sure you continually address your advertising and what it is delivering. This isn’t just for Facebook; Google make a whole lot of money from people using PPC and letting it run untouched for month after month and in some cases even year after year!

Not integrating with your website

Ok, so a bit of a cheat here as it’s not technically on Facebook, but so often the integration of social media with other marketing activity amounts to a Twitter and Facebook icon lodged in the top right hand corner of a website.

You can do better; we know you can!

Look at ways in which you can better integrate your Facebook page with the rest of your web presence.

Can’t think of any ways? I bet we can help!

Marketing creates greater rewards when it’s integrated and all working together; make sure you’re doing that and you’ll see the difference. Drive traffic to your website, pass it back to your Facebook page. Build brand engagement and enjoy the fruitful relationships it brings.

Making it salesy

Ah the ultimate temptation; you’ve got a sales platform so get on the soap box, dust off the Derek Trotter fur coat and begin selling.

This time next year Rodney!

Unfortunately this time next year you’ll likely be driving the same three-wheeled car as if you go to salesy it’ll back fire worse than a Robin Reliant!

Use your page to engage, to add value, not only to you but also to your location, to those around you and your clients!

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