Mark spoke at the event last year, which attracted more than 300 businesses from across the region. Next February he will be covering “Encouraging repeat bookers, creating advocates and building your brand for 2024″.

The event is for all types of tourism and hospitality business, with topical updates, news, ideas and insights and each day will have a different theme:

6 February – Tourism priorities, excellence, accessibility and sustainability
7 February – Marketing, digital, social media and AI

You can join Mark on day two of the conference (7^th February 2024) at Westpoint Arena.

Find out more and book here: https://www.westcountrytourismconference.org.uk/

The post MiHi Mark to speak at Westcountry Tourism Conference appeared first on MiHiDigital.

Our newest member of the team is me! Chloé Grayling. Having lived in the North of England and London for 8 years combined, I have finally realised that home is where the heart is and am now happily back living in Okehampton, Devon. I have a background in Fashion PR, Footwear Marketing, and even Decking and Cladding, but my true love has always been writing about and exploring the Southwest of England. 

Here are 10 facts about me to help you get to know me a little better…

What’s your name and role?

Chloé Grayling, Digital Marketer

When did you join the MiHi Team?

I joined the MiHi Team in October 2023 making me one of the the new kids on the block.

What’s your favourite viral video?

It’s got to be the Zoom “Lawyer-with-a-cat-face-filter” saga! Working from home I spend a lot of my time on Zoom calls, and this just had me howling with laughter. The fact that the other (very serious) members of the meeting kept straight faces throughout gets me every time. 

Touchwood this will never happen to me – but I can’t promise my dog Winnie won’t make a background appearance every once in a while!

“I’m here live, but I’m just not a cat!”

Who’s your number one influencer?

I’m quite into my health and fitness and during lockdown when gyms were closed, @courtneydblack was my saviour. She had me jump squatting across my living room and I’ve never looked back!

What is your office essential?

COFFEE and a fresh bunch of flowers every week.

Where was your best holiday experience?

It has to be snorkelling in Sharm-El-Sheikh in Egypt on my 30^th birthday – it’s honestly like a whole new world under the sea! (cue the Disney karaoke!)        

Top tip for starting out on social media?

Don’t take planning, algorithms or statistics too seriously – whilst it’s important to have a tone of voice to suit the brand you’re working with, it’s also great to let your personality shine through and think about what you would want to see as a consumer.

What would your Mastermind category be?

Poochons (it’s a dog breed, Bichon Frisé x Poodle)

How many followers do you have on your most popular social media account?

Embarrassingly, my dog has more followers than I do at 1,265 – @winnie.thepoochon – she is a model though…

Recommend a great place to eat/drink in the Southwest.

I love a good country walk with my dog Winnie (did I mention her yet?) followed by a Sunday Roast in a cosy pub on a weekend. My all-time favourite place has to be The Three Crowns in Chagford  Their Yorkshire puddings are as big as your head!

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

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

The post Meet the MiHi Digital Team… Chloé Grayling appeared first on MiHiDigital.

Threads amassed 5 million users within its first 4 hours of launch. The app went live at 7pm EDT in the US and midnight in the UK. However, regulatory concerns mean it is not available in the EU at this time.

What actually is Threads?

Threads is a free text-based conversation app made by the brains behind Instagram and Facebook.

Meta describes Threads as: “where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow. Whatever it is you’re interested in, you can follow and connect directly with your favourite creators and others who love the same things – or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world.”

In other words, it’s a place to talk about the things you love with other people. How original.

How does it work?

After downloading Threads myself and taking it for a spin, I can confirm that it’s reassuringly simple to use. It features one main news feed and the classic like, share and comment functions we’re all familiar with. Meta aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel here. The app looks very clean, minimalistic and unsurprisingly, exactly like Twitter. You can publish text posts, reshare (the same as a retweet on Twitter) and quote share (like quote tweeting). You can also create a series of text posts, much like Twitter threads, which does beg the question: what will threads be called on Threads? Threads squared? A spool? Yarn? Who knows…

Despite Threads being text-centric, this isn’t to say you can’t post images and videos here too – in fact, you can post videos up to 5 minutes long. However, much like Twitter, the main focus of the app is to connect with others through snappy, insightful conversation. Having said that, Thread’s character limit for text posts is 500, which is nearly double Twitter’s.

The interesting thing about Threads is that it’s directly linked to your Instagram account. In order to set up a profile on Threads, you have to log in using your existing Instagram username. So, in a way, Threads is quite literally an extension of your Instagram presence.

This could be relevant to brands if, for example, you wanted to post visually striking content across the image-orientated Instagram, and then use Threads for starting conversations with your customers, gaining feedback and engaging further within your niche.

Another interesting thing: at the tap of a button, you can connect with all your Instagram followers on Threads. There’s no need to manually find and follow all your friends. This means most people won’t be starting from scratch on the platform and, if you’re a business, you can easily connect with any of your existing, loyal followers from Instagram.

Should Twitter be worried?

Twitter currently has around 400 million active users, whereas Instagram has an eyewatering 2.35 billion. Granted, not all of these users are going to transfer over to Threads. But there’s a lot of potential here, nonetheless.

While lots of marketers have been hyping up the release of Threads, we don’t truly know if it’s going to be a success or a flop. Not yet. With apps like Clubhouse riding fast then dying hard within just a couple of years, versus TikTok giving Google a run for their money, there is a lot of potential for Threads to take the social media world by storm. But equally, it could quickly run out of steam. It’s a waiting game for now, and that makes it hard to know whether it’s worth investing into this app, or if it’s going to be a waste of your time and energy.

However, one thing that will work in Thread’s favour is the growing number of people dumping Twitter because, to be blunt, they’re fed up of Elon Musk. From bringing back controversial banned accounts, to laying off masses of Twitter staff members, to recently limiting the number of posts accounts can read in a day, Elon has made some drastic changes to Twitter since taking over the platform last year. It’s been a bumpy ride and, in all honesty, he’s rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way.

As more and more accounts are leaving Twitter, presumably, these people will be looking for somewhere more refreshing to hang out. Could Threads become their new haven? It makes sense, but we will have to wait and see…

There has also been recent talk about the relentlessness of social media – the never-ending doom-scrolling that platforms like Twitter and TikTok encourage. With this in mind, I thought it was a nice touch that Threads has a ‘take a break’ function, which will remind you to leave the app after 10, 20 or 30 minutes.

Additionally, Threads has the option to completely hide any replies on your posts. This function isn’t available on Twitter and has been praised by many marketers, journalists and entrepreneurs already. For example, marketing tycoon Steven Bartlett described this as “the most overlooked feature in [Thread’s] pursuit of creating healthy / friendly conversation” and explained that “if someone abuses, scams or trolls in your replies, you can remove it from view completely”.

Should my business be using Threads?

This is a tough question. Why? Because it all comes down to context.

If Twitter is already a significant part of your business’s social media strategy, and you’re making great progress there, you could assume that you’ll do pretty well on Threads too. Particularly if you’re seeing a lot of your followers leaving Twitter amid the Elon Musk fiasco, Threads could be a great opportunity for you to connect with them elsewhere.

However, it can be dangerous to assume that something that works well on Twitter will work well on Threads too because, currently speaking, we don’t know what kind of culture is going to develop on this new platform. You could end up catering to a whole different crowd.

Equally, if you have a substantial following on Instagram, many of these users will transfer over to Threads and you could continue to craft a relationship with them here. However, you need to bear in mind that your strategy on Instagram, where reels and images take front seat, will look very different to your strategy on Threads. You can’t simply copy and paste your content from one platform to the other – and frankly, that would be pointless to do anyway.

But possibly, threads could offer a place for you to nurture relationships and focus more on gaining feedback from customers. For example, if you run a hotel, you could ask your followers ‘what are the key qualities you look for when choosing somewhere to stay?’ or ‘we’re revamping our website – does anyone have any requests?’ or ‘what are your favourite family days out in the area?’ But this is only really worth doing if you have enough followers on Threads to conduct a decent-sized survey.

The truth is, if you’re already performing well on a social media platform, you might be better focussing on that rather than trying to branch out to Threads. This is especially relevant if you’re already overworked, burnt out, and trying to balance multiple tasks as a business owner.

But on the other hand, if you have room to experiment, why not give it a go? It might be all for nothing if Threads crashes and burns within 6 months. Or, it might be the best social media decision you ever make. Where are your bets lying?

But be warned: once you’ve made a Threads account you can’t delete it without also deleting your Instagram. So, if you give Threads a go and then decide to back out of the platform, you can deactivate your account but please don’t delete it! This would wipe all of your following across Instagram too – and building that back up would be a monumental task.

If you use social media to create a lot of paid ads, Threads probably won’t be much use to you. Not for now, anyway. According to The Guardian, “Meta will not be accepting ads on Threads for this year at least.”

Final thoughts

All in all, this is an exciting time and the Mihi team will certainly be keeping a close eye on this new app. Happy threading (or not)!

Need some help growing your business via social media? Or need a hand identifying which social platforms will work best for you? Get in touch with us today.

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

The post What we know about Threads, Meta’s new rival to Twitter 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.

We know it has its downsides from definite limitations when it comes to categorising your business to the fact that anyone anywhere can write, well, anything about you, your service and your staff, even if they haven’t experienced it first-hand! 

But we still believe that the good far outweighs the bad when it comes to making the most of your TripAdvisor profile.  First things first, it’s largely free. There are very few other spaces in the online world that still offer such reach and marketing capabilities for nothing at all. But really making TripAdvisor work for you goes beyond simply claiming your free profile and hoping for the best.

Here are some easy things you can do right now to supercharge your TripAdvisor page:

1. Follow up and ask for honest reviews…

If you don’t ask, you don’t get and it’s just good business sense to ask every guest who visits for their feedback. Send a personalised ‘thank you’ email to every visitor with a link to your TripAdvisor page, asking for a review.

Most booking systems and CRM systems allow you to automate this so it’s super easy, simply set it up to send the first message between 24 and 72 hours after the visit and follow up with a reminder a couple of weeks later.

2. Tell them what you want to hear…

TripAdvisor of course wants its reviews to be the most useful to its users so don’t be afraid to prompt your guests on what to include in their feedback. Questions like ‘what was the highlight of your experience?’ and ‘how easy was it to book?’ for example could elicit a much richer review which will go down well with the TripAdvisor algorithm.

3. People can be lazy, make it easy…

Trust us, no one wants to search out a way to offer their feedback unless they’ve had a dreadful experience. So make leaving a review as easy as possible by including direct links anywhere you can and incorporate it into your website by adding your rating widget to your footer and booking pages.

Make sure you include any TripAdvisor certificates or awards logos into your website footer with a direct link to your profile too for extra ways in.

4. Train staff to ask…

Guests always respond better to a personal, verbal ask than an email so if you get a chance to have a conversation with your visitors, don’t be afraid to ask!  And make sure your staff are trained up and feel confident to have those conversations too especially your front-of-house team.

5. Have 10+ high quality images…

TripAdvisor is a pretty effective digital shop window, so make sure you’re setting it up just right. It’s been proven that businesses with 10 to 15 high-quality photos on TripAdvisor get double the customer interaction, so take some time to find your best images (or get some taken), get them uploaded and show off your business. It’s also a great way for reviewers to confirm they’re reviewing the right place and encourage photos in their own reviews.

6. Interaction is key…

Like every other social media platform, being social is non-negotiable. Make sure you’re setting aside time to respond to reviews, even (some might say, especially) the negative ones. People need to see that feedback is being heard to encourage them to leave reviews in the future. Thank them and remember to be respectful and professional, as you well know – it’s all very public! But don’t be afraid to let a little personality shine through.

7. Add physical signage…

Add some signage with a QR code to your TripAdvisor account around the place but especially at exit areas as a priority. If guests have had a great time, they’re more likely to leave a review as they leave. 

Check out some great examples on the TripAdvisor website

8. Lean in on your regulars…

Reach out to your regulars and membership base, if they’ve visited recently email them and ask for a review. If they’ve signed up to be a member for example, you know they love what you’re doing and they’re likely to leave you a good review.

9. Use reviews in your marketing…

Take advantage of this by using authentic, positive reviews and images on your social media, in physical marketing and on your website – just make sure you thank the reviewer! This fires up the concept of social proof in your followers and potential customers while also encouraging new reviews too! It’s a win-win!

10. Keep it positive…

Even when dealing with a negative review, keep things upbeat but don’t be afraid to challenge factually inaccurate reviews. Visitors are really wising up to the unqualified negative review now so if you find yourself on the receiving end of something like this, be professional but clear in your response. Visitors will see that you’re really engaged with your business and customers. If a negative review has merit, again, holding your hands up, apologising and outlining what you’ll do to rectify the problems raised is so much better than simply leaving it unanswered. 

Doing all the above consistently will start to see your business creep up the TripAdvisor algorithms and gain more visibility in a very busy space. Just remember the three pillars of the TripAdvisor algorithm, Quantity, Quality and Recency. So, make sure you’re getting regular reviews, of a good quality (not just ‘nice place’) and that they’re recent as reviews from 2 years ago won’t do anything for your account!

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

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

The post Boost your TripAdvisor ranking with these 10 Proven Tips 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

The post TikTok for businesses: Are Instagram and YouTube still relevant? appeared first on MiHiDigital.

What is the Instagram Explore Page?

Before you can get your content on the Instagram Explore page, it is important to understand exactly what it is. If you’re already familiar with the Explore page, you can skip this bit and head straight to the how to get your content on the Explore page section below!

The explore page brings together content that Instagram feels a user will be interested in based on their activity. For example, if a user likes a picture of a cat, the algorithm will take note of this and show a user more cat related content. As it is so individual, no two Explore pages are alike, meaning you’ll largely be competing within your own industry for a target audience that is likely to already be interested in seeing content like yours. The explore page includes photos, videos, reels and even stories. More than 200 million accounts visit the Instagram Explore page daily, that is 50% of the platform user base! This is a huge audience to tap into and a great place to generate more leads.

How to get your content on the Instagram Explore page

Understand Your Audience
Understanding what your audience is interested in is the key to generating content that delivers results. As your audience informs so much of what you do, it’s best to make sure you’re clear on who is following you and what they like first. If you’re not entirely sure who your audience is, take some time to analyse your current followers. Go to Instagram Insights and take note of information like age, gender and location. This will help you to craft the most appealing content for your audience. You can also look at which of your current posts are the most popular and create content that is similar in style.

Post at the best time
For the algorithm, what time the content is posted is vital. Recent posts that are getting immediate engagement are more likely to appear on the Explore page as Instagram will perceive them as high value content that others will also enjoy. To establish the best time to post, again look at your Instagram Insights and see when your current audience is the most active. You can also Google the most popular days/times to post in your location and base your posting times on that.

Encourage engagement
Whilst you’re hopefully posting interesting content your users want to engage with anyway, you can use a call to action (CTA) in your caption to help encourage this. For example, ask your users to leave a comment, visit your website or watch your story. There are also story options like polls and questions where you can encourage your audience to interact with your content. This can also be a great way to gauge what content your audience wants to see more of! Don’t forget to engage back with your audience by liking and responding to comments.

Stay on topic
It can be tempting to jump on every social media trend that is gaining traction, but the reality is that not every single one of these trends is going to suit your specific business. To generate engagement and build an audience that you want to convert to customers, consistency is essential. This also relates to the algorithm, for example, if you post about fitness one day, travelling the next and dogs the day after, Instagram won’t know what your account is about and therefore won’t recommend it to an audience. Keep your message consistent and only use trending audios, challenges, etc, that work for your business.

Use all the content formats
We all process information differently and prefer different formats, so it’s important to take advantage of Instagram’s different post formats and post stories, reels and pictures, as well as create opportunities for interaction, for example, story polls. More recently, Instagram has revealed that video content, such as reels or IGTV is highly favoured and is more frequently shown than pictures. With this in mind, it is important to create reel and video content for your brand. If you don’t yet have video content for your brand, you can be sneaky and use still photos in reels instead.

Use tags
Hashtags, geotags and account tags give you the opportunity to expand your posts reach as the Explore page allows users to search for hashtag, location and topic. By adding relevant tags, you can help your audience find you. Statistics show that accounts that use tags receive more engagement on their posts than accounts that don’t. Make sure that you’re only using relevant hashtags. It can be tempting to jump on hashtags that are trending or popular, however, this can have the opposite effect of your post receiving less exposure and engagement as it appears spammy or is showing up in searches where it’s not relevant.

By using a combination of the above, you will be well on your way to featuring on the Instagram Explore page, expanding your audience and bringing in new leads for your business.

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

The post Explore the Instagram Explore Page appeared first on MiHiDigital.

Increase website traffic
A study by HubSpot Marketing showed that businesses with a blog get up to 55% more website traffic. Blogs are a great way to answer questions, solve problems your customers have, advertise new products/services, and allow your audience to get to know your brand on a more personal level.

Take the time to research what questions your audience is asking/what they’re interested in and try to answer these questions and provide a solution to any pain points. Content that offers value will help to attract potential customers to your website and increase your leads.

Good for SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. Optimising your website is important to ensure that it ranks higher in search engines and is therefore more visible to potential customers.

Some of the factors that go into ranking in search engines include new content, keywords, the number of indexed pages and backlinks. By updating your website with high quality blogs on a regular basis, you can cover all these areas, which will help to improve your search engine rankings and attract more customers.

Creates content for social media
Blog content is great for repurposing as social media content, helping you to fill up spaces in your social media content calendar, as well as encourage users onto your website.

You can simply link to your blog as a whole or turn it into bite sized chunks of information, reels, highlights, infographics, or videos. You can even repurpose it to go out via email as a newsletter. The possibilities are endless!

Establishes authority within your industry
Not only does a blog allow you to connect better with your audience and give them a greater insight into your brand, but it also positions your business as an authority within your field.

Having a blog that is consistently updated, well-written and offering high-value content tells your customers that you are a credible source of information. We all like to purchase from brands that we can trust, and a blog will go a long way in helping to establish this trust with your customer base.

Drives long-term results
The good thing about blogs, particularly those that cover certain topics or answer specific questions, is that they continue to generate traffic. This is why it is so important to make sure you’re providing relevant content that is helpful to your target audience. Many businesses find that a large percentage of their organic traffic arrives on their site via blogs, this means that a blog is still working hard for you weeks, months or even years after you uploaded it.

We hope this has inspired you to get blogging but if you’re wrestling with your writing and need help with your digital marketing strategy, give us a call on 01566 232323 or email us at hello@mihidigital.co.uk

The post 5 reasons you should be blogging for your business appeared first on MiHiDigital.

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.