Get a Quote

Category: Uncategorized

We famous! Check out our team in this CTV Vancouver news series

Posted on by Erin Reynel

Most of the time, the women at Legendary Social Media stay behind the lens. But CTV News Vancouver wanted to pick our brains about the state of social media today. Here’s how that went. 

From social media to primetime 

Recently, CTV News Vancouver contacted us to do a series of 3 stories about social media. We thought we were just going to be a small part of the coverage; but, when the videos came out, we were featured prominently in all 3.

They told us the interviews would take 30 minutes, but they filmed for 2.5 hours.

If you haven’t caught the videos yet, here they are… 

  1. We’re holding each other ‘hostage’ with bad smartphone manners: experts

Synopsis: With smartphones now the norm, this story focuses on how we establish proper etiquette for their use. It goes over everything from texting and walking to looking through others’ phones. Our top social media etiquette tip? Be respectful of your surroundings, including the other people around you! 

  1. Smartphone addiction? Signs you need a social media detox

Synopsis: We’ve all heard about people going on social media cleanses, but what are they? And how do you know if you need one? In this story, we talk about when it’s time to unplug. Don’t worry about judgement though, cause there’s none here! We talk about our own need for social media cleanses – and how hard they are for us to maintain. 

  1. ‘What goes on the web, stays on the web’: A warning from one parent to others

Synopsis: “Sharents” – AKA parents who share everything about their kids on social media – are the focus of this story. Legendary Social Media’s fearless leader, Erin, may be a social media expert, but she posts “almost nothing” about her two kids. Why? Because she knows that whatever is put out there could stay there for the rest of her kids’ lives, and she doesn’t want to post anything that would embarrass them or make it hard for them to get, say, a job once they’re older. Basically, if you wouldn’t want the photo you’re about to post out there from when you were young, don’t post it. Or just don’t post at all about your kids until they’re old enough to make their own decisions. 

 

Thank you to CTV journalist St. John Alexander for interviewing us for these stories. We’re always happy to share our experience to help others navigate social media! 

14 insanely easy Instagram marketing tips you should do now!

Posted on by Erin Reynel

This blog post is part of our Lessons from SMSS15 series. Legendary Social Media is taking part in Social Media Examiner’s Social Media Success Summit, which is the world’s largest online social media marketing conference. This blog series covers the points and ideas we’ve taken from the course that we’ve deemed to be eye-opening and highly useful for other marketers and for small- and medium-sized businesses. To discuss any of the ideas in these blogs or other ideas about social marketing, please don’t hesitate to contact us here.

For those of us who have been using Instagram for a long time, the app is clearly well-loved and well-used (we find it sometimes replaces Facebook!). But for marketers, Instagram remains one of the least understood marketing tools available.

Some businesses have truly nailed Instagram marketing while others are just starting to figure it out. During her presentation at SMSS15, Insta expert Sue B. Zimmerman gave a multitude of amazing tips to help marketers and businesses understand how Instagram marketing works and master it for their own business.

Here’s a little caveat from us at Legendary Social Media, though: Instagram is not the ideal marketing tool for every business. Being that it’s a photo-sharing tool, businesses that don’t have a ton of visually appealing content to post may not see a ton of response on Instagram. That said, some businesses you wouldn’t expect to do well have blown away experts and used creativity to make Instagram a great platform for communicating with their customers and clients.

If you’re thinking of using Instagram for marketing your business, here are 14 super easy tips to follow to get the best engagement, the most leads and get major brand recognition.

  1. Take your photos using interesting/unusual angles. They’ll draw more attention.
  2. Use the description space provided to put out “microblogs.”
  3. Use emojis in your description!
  4. Answer every comment and question under each photo.
  5. Get super specific with your accounts. If you’re a bar-restaurant, try having one account for drinks and another for food.
  6. Post daily, but run some tests to see if posting four times daily, or just three times a week works better with your audience.
  7. Use the geo-tag!
  8. Use hashtags. Up to 30 are allowed. Save them in a Note on your phone so you can copy and paste them in.
  9. Put hashtags in the description, not in a comment.
  10. Check what your competitors, or similar Instagrammers are using for their hashtags. Which are working and which fall flat?
  11. Collaborate with others and tag them in your photos.
  12. In posts with calls to action (sign up, etc.), have someone using a phone or tablet in the photo. It can help the user connect better with the intent of the photo
  13. Use Instagram’s video capabilites as a teaser to promote your YouTube video or channel. Include a link!
  14. Be mobile friendly. Always.

Tips for creating a visual style guide for your business (or your clients)

Posted on by Erin Reynel

This blog post is part of our Lessons from SMSS15 series. Legendary Social Media is taking part in Social Media Examiner’s Social Media Success Summit, which is the world’s largest online social media marketing conference. This blog series covers the points and ideas we’ve taken from the course that we’ve deemed to be eye-opening and highly useful for other marketers and for small- and medium-sized businesses. To discuss any of the ideas in these blogs or other ideas about social marketing, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

It’s a well-established fact that online, visual is king. But it’s also a crucial element that you can royally screw up with something as simple as inconsistency. Here’s why.

Think about a major brand, maybe Nike. I’d bet that you could identify a Nike ad, even if it didn’t have the swoosh on it. It would be someone doing a physical activity, with tons of contrast to make the image look really intense. When the swoosh appears, it’s probably in the bottom right corner, or huge and centered on the image.

Consistency is key to defining your brand, and customers may trust your brand more if they can identify it easily. So whether you’re a small, medium or large business, or a marketing professional like myself who’s responsible for creating visuals for your clients, sticking to these fantastic tips that came out of the Social Media Success Summit 2015 talk by Peg Fitzpatrick can go a long way toward increasing your brand awareness and even its performance online.

You’ve already started creating visuals for your brand, and noticed inconsistency with them? Don’t worry – there’s no erasing the past. But right now is the absolute best time to start on a track toward consistent branding that speaks to your message, every time.

The first step is creating a brand vision board. Fitzpatrick recommends doing so on Pinterest, and it’s a great idea! Search for things that suit your style and pin them to an inspiration board. Look for common themes like colours and fonts that keep popping up.

From that practice, you can pick out the four main elements of your brand’s style:

  1. Logo
  2. Colour Palette
  3. Style/Mood
  4. Fonts

Now, when you’re designing your own graphics for social media, for print, or anything else that isn’t too heavy duty, use this same elements in all of your designs.

Like Fitzpatrick, I totally recommend using Canva. It’s insanely easy to use and with Canva for Work, you can save all your fonts, colours and even photo filters so that you don’t have to do all the styling every time.

Got questions about styling, creating graphics for your business, or social media management? Get in touch today!

A better way to advertise on Facebook? About video ads

Posted on by Erin Reynel

This blog post is part of our Lessons from SMSS15 series. Legendary Social Media is taking part in Social Media Examiner’s Social Media Success Summit, which is the world’s largest online social media marketing conference. This blog series covers the points and ideas we’ve taken from the course that we’ve deemed to be eye-opening and highly useful for other marketers and for small- and medium-sized businesses. To discuss any of the ideas in these blogs or other ideas about social marketing, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

It’s interesting that last night in the Social Media Success Summit 2015, one of the really great talks was about video ads. The reason was that earlier yesterday, I had filed three vlogs that I meant to post on my blog in the near future, and to my Facebook page.

Instead, the talk by Amy Porterfield explained why video ads are so effective at grabbing people’s attention, and how to make them work for you on a shoestring budget.

The main point is that virtually anyone can create video ads for almost no money. In fact, all you need is a personality and an iPhone. Porterfield’s example was of an Instagram queen who filmed her hugely effective video ad with an iPhone in phone hand and a coffee in the other, while walking down the street. Just like that.

Porterfield explained that there are five crucial elements that must be in your video ad to make it effective (her presentation focused on video ads, but I’d say that these ring true no matter which platform you’re advertising on with video):

  1. Start the ad with an obvious “yes” question – a question your audience will definitely say “yes” to.
  2. Then, tell people who you are, and why they should care who you are.
  3. Now, make a promise about what you’re going to give them.
  4. Include a “so that” statement. This statement should solve a pain point or a problem for your audience.
  5. Finish off with a call to action. This could be to subscribe, download, click a link, call or buy.

Then, it’s on to the nitty gritty of how to publish the ad properly. Porterfield recommends using Facebook’s Power Editor for Facebook video ads. Set your objective as either Video Views or Conversions, and have the ad appear in users’ mobile news feed.

She also recommends clicking on the “Create audience from people who view the video” button to save people who watch 10 or more seconds of your video into a custom audience. You can market to this “warm” audience again in the near future!

Want to know more about creating video ads, or any type of social ads for your business? Get in touch today!

Tips for creating awesome visual content

Posted on by Erin Reynel

This blog post is part of our Lessons from SMSS15 series. Legendary Social Media is taking part in Social Media Examiner’s Social Media Success Summit, which is the world’s largest online social media marketing conference. This blog series covers the points and ideas we’ve taken from the course that we’ve deemed to be eye-opening and highly useful for other marketers and for small- and medium-sized businesses. To discuss any of the ideas in these blogs or other ideas about social marketing, please don’t hesitate to contact us here.

Whether you’re a marketing professional, a small business or just looking to have fun with some of the cool new tools out there on the interweb, one thing to keep in mind is that visuals absolutely rule the world. People process images faster than text or audio, so having strong images can work miracles for whatever it is you’re creating, be it ads, infographics, blog post images, Facebook posts or even book covers. During yesterday’s Social Media Success Summit 2015, presenters Donna Moritz and Rebekah Radice gave some handy tips on how to create awesome visuals – with major impact – easily.

First, the tools. Here are Moritz’s picks for the coolest new visual content creation apps that you probably want to play with. I know I do.

(These are in my order of love/want to test out, from most to least)

Canva. Can’t live without it. Canva turns averages Joes like myself into wannabe graphic designers and the stuff I’ve churned out since I started using Canva even impresses my own picky self. Canva lets you combine images, text and shapes into graphics. And those graphics come with pre-sized templates so they’ll fit properly into whatever platform you’re using them for, like Facebook ads (beware – there’s no template for Page Like ads), infographics, Facebook cover photos and more.

Videolicious. Apparently makes it easy to whip up mobile video, which goes nicely with Amy Porterfield’s talk on video ads from the previous day. Definitely a must-try.

Hyperlapse. An Instagram app that puts video into fast forward. Perfect for tours, behind-the-scenes videos and events.

Piktochat. Makes it easy to create infographics.

Wordswag. Adds funky/trendy text on top of images, especially for Instagram.

Blab/Periscope/Meerkat. Is this the future of social media? Probably. Each of these is a live-streaming video app. I’m one of the ones who’s terrified of the live-streaming trend, but also interested it give it a whirl.

Legend. An app for turning video into GIFs.

Relay. Like Canva, but less customizable, which is great if you’re not super keen on creating visuals from scratch. It supplies the template, you plug in the images and text. Bam.

Stop Motion Studio. Just in case you feel like creating some claymation (or any kind of stop motion video).

Now, when it comes to the content within your visuals, it’s crucial that you consider the purpose of what you’re creating, before you create it. According to Radice, your visuals should very clearly solve your customers’ or clients’ pain point or problem. It should show them quickly that you know what they want, and you’re offering a way to solve that. That’s what the “purpose” is all about.

Use fonts that are easy to read.

And most importantly, be consistent. Keep the feel of your visuals consistent, not only with each other, but with your brand. Be consistent with the colours you use, and the fonts.

And finally, each piece of visual content you create should go beyond the purpose of the post it’s destined for. Instead, content that’s highly sharable should have a longer-term purpose. It should grab attention, be useful and fit in with your brand’s goals.

The 6 keys to transforming social content into economic value

Posted on by Erin Reynel

This blog post is part of our Lessons from SMSS15 series. Legendary Social Media is taking part in Social Media Examiner’s Social Media Success Summit, which is the world’s largest online social media marketing conference. This blog series covers the points and ideas we’ve taken from the course that we’ve deemed to be eye-opening and highly useful for other marketers and for small- and medium-sized businesses. To discuss any of the ideas in these blogs or other ideas about social marketing, please don’t hesitate to contact us here.

In a world where everyone says that “content is king,” why doesn’t content move like we expect it to? We’re all told that if we put out valuable content, it’ll transform into page views and social shares, adding to our brand’s authority. The problem is, that doesn’t really happen too often anymore, and the reason is that competition is high in the content game.

Imagine, every brand and individual who’s pushing to make a name for themselves online is putting out content as fast as they can manage. The result is a flood of content online and on social platforms. As part of the Social Media Success Summit 2015, content guru Mark Schaefer gave six key tips for not just getting your content noticed, but getting it shared.

And as we know, shares are really king, because shares mean trust. We’ll get to that later in this article.

The 6 keys to transforming social content into economic value are:

  1. Brand development. Showing people that your brand is run by real people who actually care about their customers/clients/followers. This one’s about creating and maintaining an emotional connection with people.
  2. Audience and influencers. A very small percentage of your customers/clients/followers actually engage in and share/retweet/repost the content that you put out there. Somewhere around 0.5% and 2% of them. These people are your golden geese.
  3. SEO. It’s not as important as you would think anymore, in part because of the competition factor, but also because highly sharable content can go viral even if your site’s SEO is seriously lacking. That said, sites with lots of authority with Google will always beat out sites with poor SEO in Google searches.
  4. Authority. Similar to the previous point, your site’s “relationship” with Google will affect your content’s search ranking. If your site’s SEO is lacking, it’s easier to get noticed by publishing on LinkedIn.
  5. Social proof and social signals. This is a big one. Tons of shares represent tons of people who trust your brand and lends credibility to your content. Winning!
  6. Sharability. There are several elements to this one, all of which have the goal of making sharing your content really EASY:
  7. have share buttons on your website for one-click sharing
  • write awesome, attention-grabbing headlines
  • articles should be more than 1,000 words – people like value, and Google likes it when people spend more time on your site
  • be first out the gate with new ideas and research, so that people who share will feel that they too are helping to spread to word about revolutionary concepts

On another note, Schaefer made a great point about the future of online marketing. This upcoming generation of Millennials doesn’t trust advertising; they trust reviews, which is what will REALLY impact their buying and behaviour decisions. Therefore, building trust by being transparent AND trustworthy will become key to any brand’s success over the coming years.

Need help building trust with your customers? Legendary Social Media isn’t your typical social media management agency in Vancouver – we do social the way it was meant to be done. Curious? Send us an email.

request your custom quote.

Email Us

vancouver's boutique
marketing agency.