Simon Scholes

USING SEARCH Are you using one of the most powerful tools on social media? So many people I’ve been speaking to recently either don’t realise, or have forgotten then most social media platforms are also a search tool. This is a brilliant chance for you to reach out to people around the world, or locally who need your help. We all buy on emotion, and we need someone to help with a specific pain point in our businesses. Use the search function and reach out to speak to 10 or 15 people every single day on each social platform. You’ll be amazed at the potential of building your group of raving fans by doing something like this and giving people value value value. Facebook live cheat sheet: http://perceptionstudios.co.uk/cheat-sheet/ Hi, I'm Simon, and welcome to Daily Perceptions. I am the founder & creative director of Perception Studios UK, and award winning visual marketing agency, based in Andover Hampshire, in the UK. I also specialise in working with small businesses, and brands in helping them

ARE YOU PLANNING YOUR CONTENT? When it comes to content creation, I've heard all the excuses.....however, in an age where we nearly all walk around with a smart phone in our back pocket, with the ability to download apps onto them......there's NO EXCUSE for not creating content for your brand and or business. With meme creation apps, podcast creating apps, video editing software and so much more, all available on your mobile phone, what is it that's really stopping you from creating content to pass on your value and build a group of raving fans?ARE YOU READY FOR A BRAND NEW WEEK? So, are you ready for this week? Do you know what you’re going to be posting about? Don’t forget the opportunity for you to create content galore by simply getting that blog written and published. Start writing a blog, and with this one thing you can make so much more with the “How to 9 x your social media” process. Facebook live cheat sheet: http://perceptionstudios.co.uk/cheat-sheet/ Hi, I'm Simon, and welcome to Daily P

ARE YOU TRYING TO SELL? As I’ve mentioned many times, social media is for being SOCIAL. It’s not a place to post and sell with every post you put out. However, selling does have a time and a place. When it comes to selling your brand and products means you really need to stand out, create something different. This is the point speaking to a professional might be the way forwards. We can all have a creative idea, and it could be amazing, but, it’s usually a professional team who’ll help you realise it, and when you’re putting money behind the content to help sell your brand it’s well worth making sure the content you’re using looks great and does what you want it too. For example, did you know research has found that photos with a single dominant hue do best, and also images with faces help break down the barriers of not knowing who you’re working with. Blue colours are very calming and images with natural light score more likes on average? A professional will know these things and much more. There ar

As some of you may remember, I previously spoke to different businesses around the world to find out more about them, how they got to where they are now and how they used social media to help them do that. It's time to start talking again, so this week is my first time back, and I'm speaking to the brilliant Ryan Narus. He's the co-founder of The Archimedes Group who helps to create and build affordable housing. You can find Ryan and the Archimedes Group here: Website: http://www.archimedesgrp.com Facebook: shorturl.at/hwKP3 YouTube: shorturl.at/gjRW8 LinkedIn: shorturl.at/dyMU2 Podcast: shorturl.at/nsIS7 Facebook live cheat sheet: http://perceptionstudios.co.uk/cheat-sheet/ Hi, I'm Simon, and welcome to Daily Perceptions. I am the founder & creative director of Perception Studios UK, and award winning visual marketing agency, based in Andover Hampshire, in the UK. I also specialise in working with small businesses, and brands in helping them understand how they can grow their social following and bran

TELL A STORY If you’ve ever thought about using Instagram Stories for business, now is the time! Not only are Instagram Stories fun and creative, but they’re great for growing your engagement, building brand awareness, driving traffic to your website, and even making ecommerce sales! We’ve all at some point watched a form of reality tv, be it back when Big brother was actually a social experiment, or the more recent series of Love Island and everything in between. We live in a voyeuristic age, where people love to see behind the scenes, real life stuff. So, this is what I suggest using stories for at first. Give people an insight into your life, almost like a daily vlog, but, it’ll only last for 24 hours in peoples streams, it’s also a chance to really put vertical video to excellent use, but, we’ll discuss landscape v’s portrait tomorrow. Until then, start putting instagram stories to good use in your business, give that behind the scenes look as well as giving value in a way that removes yet another le

WRITE GREAT CAPTIONS Use humor. Tell a story. Reveal something your followers might not know. There are all kinds of ways to enhance your photo or video with the caption, and it’s important to get the most out of every word. I always make sure I use my caption to the best of my abilities. Invite people to interact with your captions, get them involved, give away stats and information and don’t forget to give lots and lots of value to your audience and potential audience. Social media isn’t for selling, so just remember value is Soooooooo important and you can put a lot of this into your instagram caption. Facebook live cheat sheet: http://perceptionstudios.co.uk/cheat-sheet/ Hi, I'm Simon, and welcome to Daily Perceptions. I am the founder & creative director of Perception Studios UK, and award winning visual marketing agency, based in Andover Hampshire, in the UK. I also specialise in working with small businesses, and brands in helping them understand how they can grow their social following

EVERYONE LOVES A FREE GIFT Gifts and prizes could help incentivize your audience to stay up to date with your content and also get you new people following your content too. So how do you do this? The first step in getting more Fans and Followers using incentives is to choose motivational prizes that will resonate with your market. Generally speaking, the better your offer, the more takers you’ll get. Your offer needs to be: * One that your Fans can’t refuse. * In keeping with the “ask” you want to achieve. * Related to your business, product or service. There’s so much more to it which is why I’ve written a blog on the subject, check out my website (link in my bio) to find out more.

GET CREATIVE Something I preach all the time is perfection isn’t important when it comes to content for your social media and especially instagram, but, don’t let this be a reason to not get creative. If you get a creative idea for your brand or business, it’s 100% worth your time making that idea a reality, especially if it’s a visual content idea. Sometimes the best ideas are the scariest, so don’t be afraid to try new things. Show off your product or service in a unique way by sharing real world uses, demonstrations, and individual customer highlights. So, when you make content, don’t let your creative side shine when it can, but, still, don’t focus on perfection.

SET-UP AS A BUSINESS ACCOUNT When you initially set-up your instagram it’s done as a personal account. This is all fine, however, it means you lost out on some amazing options you only get when you set-up as a business account. This is why it’s so advisable to switch to a business account as soon as possible. Instagram offers awesome free tools to business accounts. If you’re currently set up as a personal profile, consider converting it to a business profile. Doing so offers valuable benefits including the following: * The ability to see data analysis about your impressions and engagement * Giving users the option to text, email, or call your business from your Instagram profile Imagine putting out a piece of content and not allowing people to contact you once they’d seen it as your contact details are not available, that’s why a personal account does, but a business profile all the above can be tapped and that contact can be made instantly.

HOW CONSISTENT IS YOUR CONTENT? As with all social media, Instagram works on rules like this. The fact of the matter is, the next bright idea, the next amazing piece of content you put out could be the one that goes crazy and increases your brand and businesses reach exponentially. However, if you’re currently sat creating content on a sporadic basis, or even worse almost never, then the audience you have will go and consume from those who are creating consistently. Also, you’ll find the algorithms will forget about you and your content, the less you post the more they favour those that post consistently and drop your content down into peoples feeds. The reason for this is interactions etc. If someone is posting consistently, their audience will slowly build as will their contents interactions i.e. comments, thumbs up, watching the full video, clicks on links etc. etc. If you don’t post often then when you do the algorithm will favour their content over yours in someones feed as they’ve interacted more

SHARING IS CARING So, we all consume content on a regular basis. We sometimes interact, maybe by liking the content, or perhaps even commenting. However, how often do you share the content of the people you consume? If that content is of value to you, imagine how valuable it might be to your audience too. It also helps the creator potentially grow their audience while you’re working to the rule of 1/3 on social media. 1/3 sharing your own content, 1/3 sharing someone else, 1/3 being social. A few other good reasons to share content are. 1. It will improve your relevance and visibility online. 2. You can build relationships with influencers in the tourism industry and be part of a community of content curators, mutually sharing and benefitting from each other’s content. 3. Amplifying content about your subject matter will spread the love around your social networks and beyond So, next time you’re happy to click the like button, or even write a message, go on, move the mouse and share that content wi

INSTAGRAM GROWTH TIP 4 Talk to people So, here’s a question for you, and be honest in the comments………Do you reply to the comments you get on your content? If you’re getting any comments on your content, you should be looking to respond. It seems that a lot of accounts, especially business account, ignore the comments under their own posts. Trust me, I understand it, especially those one word comments that you can’t be sure if it’s spam, a bot or fake. However, it is still important to check your comments and respond to the best of your ability, acknowledging your real followers and commenters. It shows people who are just browsing through your profile that you do pay attention to your community, which gives them an extra reason to follow your account. Besides, a number of comments are a much stronger engagement indicator to the algorithm, so encourage conversations and discussions! Instagram is a social network. Remember, I’ve spoken about this before……that integral word……SOCIAL. So, be social a

UPDATE YOUR PROFILE You've got limited space, so make the most of it. Word economy is the key phrase here, so don't get to wordy with what it is you do. Emojis are a great way to paint a picture instead of a thousand words. Also, get cunning and create a page on your website with all your useful weblinks on it, and then use the address for that page as your single web link. That way you're helping people find everything they need about you in one place.....don't use crappy sites that do it for you, they get the traffic instead of you. Don’t forget as well, include contact details, especially if you’re a business make it a business profile so you can do this. There’s no point in people loving your value and content, and then not being able to get in touch with you. Facebook live cheat sheet: http://perceptionstudios.co.uk/cheat-sheet/ Hi, I'm Simon, and welcome to Daily Perceptions. I am the founder & creative director of Perception Studios UK, and award winning visual marketing agency, based in An

Are you making good use of hashtags? There is no doubt about the benefits of using Hashtags on Instagram. Hashtags are perhaps the best way to expand your reach, because they expose you to users who are already interested in those specific tags. First things first, make sure you have a hashtag for your own brand or business. Like I have #howto9xyoursocialmedia what could you have that’s possibly a bit catchier for yourself? Also a good hashtag should be specific to your industry to make sure you’re reaching the right people, but, don’t forget people in your industry will also be searching these so try to make it so your potential customers can find you. You need to not get too specific, because it still needs to be something users will actually look for. Some brands work their hashtags into the caption itself, while others just put all their hashtags after the caption. Either option (or a mix of both) is totally fine. The most important thing is that you include hashtags somewhere.

How often are you posting? We all know regular posts are a key to staying top-of-mind, and long gaps between updates can let your followers forget about you. This is the same on all social media channels too, not just instagram. On the other hand, going mad with how often you post, your followers with excessive Instagram posts will make them unfollow you. Your Instagram presence should be like your a nice smell, noticeable, but not overpowering. Now, the basic rule of thumb is, a piece of content will last 8 hours, so you need to be looking to post about 3 times a day, but it could potentially be more often or slightly less. One or two posts a day is the sweet spot for most brands. Experiment with different frequencies and analyse your results to find your balance. For example, start doing two posts a day for a while and monitor your engagement. Then switch things up by posting more or less, and see how your followers respond. You can also try posting at different times of the day to see when your follo

HOW ENGAGED ARE THEY? When it comes to social media, we all hear loads of different technical subjects thrown around, but a lot of us have no idea what any of them mean, so, let's break them down over a few different posts so you can start to understand things a bit better when people are talking about stuff, and help take your brand from local to national. So, what does engagement mean to you? On social media this is a number / metric that basically describes how much interaction your content is getting. The sites themselves use this metric as a way of understanding who to push your content to and more importantly for you, how hard to push your content in the first place. This is why I speak so passionately about giving your audience value. If you can give your audience value, ask them questions get them involved etc. then the chances are they’ll stay with you and become a raving fan of your content. So think about what you’re putting out and decide how you can really begin to involve your audience.

BUT WHAT WILL THEY THINK OF ME? Ok, it’s time for number 2. When it comes to social media, we all hear loads of different technical subjects thrown around, but a lot of us have no idea what any of them mean, so, let's break them down over a few different posts so you can start to understand things a bit better when people are talking about stuff, and help take your brand from local to national. So, something everyone worries about is what other people think when they’re posting content on their social media channels. That level of nobhead syndrome as I like to call it. The fact is, we all tend to worry about what will happen when TROLLS rear their ugly heads. This raises the question to, What is a troll? So, social media trolls are well known for trying to create controversy online, and in fact you do actually have some professional trolls, especially on youtube who make a living from being dicks. You’ll find they post negative, off topic content and usually try to start an argument. What I use as a

WHAT THE HELL IS AN ALGORITHM? When it comes to social media, we all hear loads of different technical subjects thrown around, but a lot of us have no idea what any of them mean, so, let's break them down over a few different posts so you can start to understand things a bit better when people are talking about stuff, and help take your brand from local to national. Number 1: Alglorithm.....this is one we all hear thrown around, but, what the hell is it when it's at home? This is a well-defined set of instructions that allows a computer to solve any issues. So, sites like LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, etc. use algorithms to decide what users are allowed to see in their feeds. They should always be taken into consideration, but, the fact of the matter is most of the platforms don't know what their algorithms rules are let alone us as the users, so don't get too caught up in it, just keep posting value for your amazing audience.

When it comes to doing any marketing for your brand or business, let alone social media.......how do you approach it? Most brands or businesses without a plan, get to a point where they realise they've done nothing for ages, and suddenly approach their marketing with a scattergun manner. I'd better post one thing here, and something else there etc. etc. Without a plan, your marketing can become exceptionally confusing and not just for you (because you're deciding day by day what you need to be doing) but, also massively for your raving fans, audience etc. So, let's talk about your marketing plans and how you can become less scattergun in your approach

I often get asked the question, how often should I be posting. Firstly this will always ring alarm bells, mainly because it no doubt means the person or business asking the question aren't posting enough, the main alarm bell though is the fact that when I give them the answer they're looking for it's going to scare the living shit out of them. To really get a good amount of traction going on over time you need your audience to be seeing your content, so the question should be, do I have enough time to be posting enough. For example, instagram requires 3 posts a day, twitter in reality needs 4 every single hour, facebook at least 12 times a day etc. etc. So, perhaps you need to approach your social in a more structured, planned and consistent way of giving value with your brand.