Hello, my beautiful friends and welcome to another episode of The Hayley Osborne Show. I’m Hayley and I am so glad you’re here. This is episode 63.
Over the course of this week and next here on the podcast, I’m going to share with you 10 things today and 10 things next week you need to know as a small business owner about social media. The episode got too long so I decided to split it into 2 so they both leave you inspired and motivated without feeling overwhelmed. You may not necessarily agree with everything I am going to say, and that’s ok, because I’m not here to please everyone. So those that find my style inspiring then I think you’ll be in for a real treat with this episode and next week too.
Before I get into it, I want to give a shout out to a new small business cheat sheet I’ve made. It’s not just any old cheat sheet, however it’s specifically for small business. So if you have a small business, then this is for you.
One thing I found that has kept coming up over and over with my private coaching clients and inside my membership, is small business owners do not understand exactly what they need to be including and doing within their Instagram account to have it fully optimised. Often more times that not you are so close to your business and your social media that you can’t see the forest through the trees. You just cant see what it needs anymore. This is super common. But don’t worry, I got you.
This cheat sheet is FREE, and it covers exactly what you need on your businesses Instagram account to optimise the bageezus out of it, what works and what you should be including.
It’s my Small Business Instagram Cheat Sheet and you can grab it over on www.hayleyosborne.com. You can’t miss it. It’s right at the top of my website.
What this covers are things like what you should include in your Instagram bio so it’s optimised, your account name, how to optimise the posts at the top of your Instagram page, aesthetics, reels and so much more. It’s a short punchy cheat sheet to get you appearing to the 2.35 billion monthly active users as optimal as you possibly can.
Now let’s get into the episode.
- There is not one way to do something. The first thing small business owners, YOU, need to know about social media is take your learnings about social media from multiple sources. Educate yourself in many different ways, like books, podcasts as well as things like my membership, Superhero Marketing for example. If you spend your time listening to “word on the street” stuff then someone is bound to tell you you’re doing something wrong in your social media. Everyone has different opinions on how social media “should” be used, but to tell you the truth, if you are consistent and appearing and showing up, you’ve won 80% of the battle most people face. It’s now just about finessing it. There is no one correct way to do social media. Got it!
- Done is better than perfect. What is so much worse than getting your social media wrong (haha so to speak), is not doing it at all. Show up, show up and show up as best you can. Add filters, try your hardest with reels, just show up. Because then guess what happens? Practice makes perfect and you get really good at it. Then, while you’re busy practicing, your ideal audience is noticing you wooohooo! It’s a beautiful rhythm and I just wish more of us with amazing things to share in this world would get out of your own way so you can shine like the star you are.
- Not everyone sees what you post. Some do some don’t and that’s just the nature of the beast. Have a look at your analytics and see how many people your post reached. It won’t be everyone that follows you. And that’s ok. But what this does allow you to do is repurpose your content again and again. Tweak it, make it better and fix anything you thought you needed to the first time you posted it. One thing I recommend is creating new creative (so a pic or new video) and then copy and pasting a caption from a previous post that performed well. Then switch it. So use the same video just switch out the cover pic. Just because you’ve said it once it does not mean your audience have seen it. So give yourself permission to tweak and repost. It takes time for your audience to catch on.
- Social Media platforms are all different. Their objectives are different, their target audience are different, styles are different, and demographic are different. When people tell you that you need to have different things on every platform, you don’t. You need to tailor it to each platform in the way that platform desires. I post the same thing in Facebook and Instagram, but what I do do is leave it a few days between each. Or what I post at the end of the week in Instagram, might be what gets posted at the beginning of the week in Facebook. LinkedIn is different again. I don’t use any emoji’s in LinkedIn simply because it’s more corporate. But, you need to give yourself permission to what works for you and go with it. Remember: done is better than perfect here as well. I’ve done some research before this episode, so we all know “data wise” where we stand and it looks like this:
Facebook demographics and usage
- Number of monthly active users: 2.91 billion
- Largest age group: 25-34 (31.5%)
- Gender: 43% female, 57% male (no data on other genders)
- Time spent per day: 33 minutes
Instagram demographics and usage
- Number of monthly active users: 2.35 billion
- Largest age group: 25-34 (31.2%), with 18-24 close behind at 31%
- Gender: 48.4% female, 51.8% male (no data on other genders)
- Time spent per day: 29 minutes
TikTok demographic data and usage
- Number of monthly active users: 1 billion
- Largest age group: 10-19 (25%)
- Gender: 61% female, 39% male (no data on other genders)
- Time spent per day: 89 minutes per day
Twitter demographics and usage
- Number of daily active users: 211 million (up from 187 million)
- Largest age group: 18-29 (42%)
- Gender: 38.4% female, 61.6% male (no data on other genders)
- Time spent per day: 31 minutes
LinkedIn demographics and usage
- Number of monthly active users: 810 million
- Largest age group: 25-34 (58.4%)
- Gender: 48% female, 52% male
- 63% of LinkedIn users access the network weekly, and 22% daily
Pinterest demographics and usage
- Number of monthly active users 431 million
- Largest age group: 50-64 (38%)
- Gender: 78% female, 22% male (no data on other genders)
- Time spent per day: 14.2 minutes
YouTube demographics and usage
- Number of monthly active users: 2+ billion
- Largest age group: 15-35 (highest reach)
- Gender: 46% female, 54% male (no data on other genders)
- Time spent per session: ~30 minutes
- Don’t compare your 1 to someone else’s 20. You don’t need to be everywhere. Everyone has to start somewhere. So get really good at the one platform where your ideal customers are hanging out and when you master it, move on. Don’t try and be everything to all the social media platforms or you will end up being nothing to no one. Brutal I know, but it’s true. I have a large LinkedIn presence but that has been building for over 10 years and from when I was in corporate, working for the man. But now I use it for my business, and I just got really good at using LinkedIn in the time which made it easy for me to continue on. I also used to manage a few very high-profile LinkedIn accounts during my corporate days which is why it really does not scare me. But for you, take one bite at a time. You will be rewarded in the long run. Social media is a marathon not a sprint. In Italian there is this saying, “piano piano se va lontano”. It rhymes and sounds beautiful and in English is translated: slowly, slowly, anyone goes further (in the sense of success).
- Your brand is more than your logo. It’s your tone of voice, the fonts you use, how you’ve written your Instagram bio, your about section on Facebook, how you treat people in your DM’s, how you email your email list, your posts and their aesthetic. It’s everything and your brand encompasses much more than just your logo. When you think about big brands such as Nike, Apple, McDonalds for example you know basically it’s them before you even see their logo and this is because of their branding. This takes time to establish and when you are creating content and showing up, this slowly establishes itself.
- Use your visual content to tell a story. It’s an excellent way to get your brand across. This means you really need to go back to basics, What do you want your brand to be? Motivating? Professional? Down to earth? Real? Once you have this nailed you’ll need to be posting visuals (pics or video that align with these values). The visuals you use should align with the message you are trying to convey. For example if you want to show the behind the scenes of your business, so you can be more relatable and real, then you want to use photo’s or videos that showcase you at work. Using captions over the top of your visuals are also a really great and easy way to tell your story and add context, providing extra information about the story you are telling.
- Check in on your social media account names and handles. They should all be the same so you are easy to find. All your cover pictures should be the same to accompany this as well. You are now coming across as super professional YAY! That way your audience can fine you easily and love on everything you are putting out there easily as well. The idea is to make is easy.
- Check in on all your social media profiles and links. Are they relevant? Are they all singing the same story? Are your links up to date? Are the informative? Do you have a clear call to action on what you want your audience to do once they land on your social media? It’s all relevant and it’s all important. There are 2.35 billion monthly active users in Instagram alone and if you go back to the stats I mentioned earlier, you know you want to me maxing these platforms as best you can by making sure they’re all up to date.
- Have goals for your social media platforms. Otherwise, you’re just throwing spaghetti at the wall. By doing this you will know if it is audience building that’s your objective, you need to get to work to achieve this. If growing your email list is your objective and goal, then you need to work on a strategy for this. And so on and so forth. If you don’t know what your north star is, how are you meant to follow it?
If you want all of this in your hands in an easy to digest format, I’ve put together your go to Small Business Instagram Cheat Sheet. It’s punchy, it’s juicy and its straight to the point. You read, you implement and congratulations you have now optimised your Instagram account.
You can grab it over on www.hayleyosborne.com . You can’t miss it. It’s right at the top of my website.
What this covers are things like what you should include in your Instagram bio so it’s optimised, your account name, how to post a pin to the top of your page, what these should look like, aesthetics, reels and so much more. It’s a short punchy cheat sheet to get you appearing to the 2.35 billion monthly active users as optimal as you possibly can.
Thank you so much for listening today wherever you are and remember: your learning curve becomes shorter when you surround yourself with the right people and the right tools.
Xx Hayley
