As an intuitive social media strategist, I get this question a lot. There are a lot of ways to answer this question. We like to create content when it flows the best and I post the same day I create it. A lot of social media managers and strategists will disagree with this method because “scheduling is king”.

There's so much content that is posted on social media, in fact, it was 777 million posts in 2019 according to Buffer. Most businesses are trying to adjust to the new normal right now, and it's social media that is going to take all of those companies to the next level. Why should you focus on social media? It's simple. The average person spent 2 hours and 24 minutes on Facebook in 2020, which is more than double the previous year. CEOs are more than willing to put their ads on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube these days because there is more time being spent on those platforms, especially the mobile apps, more than ever. This begs the question stated above: what kind of content should I post?

Whether you are a big corporation or a small business, you need to be on Instagram. There's a lot of potential for almost every single industry on Instagram. If you are not on Instagram at this point, you need to be. It's a great platform where you can get lots of engagement very quickly. The reason for this is that Instagram in general is a very visual social media site. Facebook and Twitter, are more text based, which in turn led to more people engaging on Instagram, YouTube, and now TikTok. If you are visual based brand (beauty, real estate, and food brands especially) will do amazing on these platforms.

If you are one of the many businesses doing holiday deals this season, then you might also be worried about how you are going to make your posts go viral on social media. I recently saw a Black Friday ad, that made me laugh, it's from Betabrand and it's amazing! Talk about creativity! They definitely knew who their audience was and if you look at that engagement, it looks like they got customers from it! These guys have been targeting me for a while now and I might become a customer cause come on it's work yoga pants. While this isn't an Instagram ad, it's a great example of how creative you can be during the holidays.

This past week SPB Productions was at the Facebook Community Boost conference in Atlanta, GA and it was an amazing experience. The Facebook Community Boost conference is a three day event held in almost every major city in the United States. The goal is to help entrepreneurs and corporations with their Facebook and Instagram pages. The event offered free - in person training from real Facebook experts and they also had booths where business owners can learn a lot of cool stuff that can really help their brand on Facebook and Instagram! I took down a lot of notes and I even got to speak to an expert about some of the pages I handle! Here's what I learned:

One of the biggest mysteries on the internet is how can I get verified on Instagram? Any non- social media users might think it's silly to get that blue check mark next to your name for anyone that is not a public figure. However, for many influencers on Instagram, it's a necessity in order to get things like sponsorships and brand deals. It's also a big ego boost, you know the "I got the blue check mark, so you need to take me seriously" sort of deal. Yet, up until recently it was a huge secret on how people could get verified on Instagram.

Are you obsessed with video? If you are not using video to brand yourself on social media, you need to start! YouTube, Facebook, SnapChat and Instagram have all come up with video options that could lead to very lucrative opportunities for your business. In 2019, 80% of all internet content will be video, and as a small business that is trying to build your brand, that's an important statistic to know. This isn't getting on a camera, posting a video to Instagram and hoping you will go viral. It's creating content that you know will create the buzz you need, and the content that people are searching for. Instagram has created a solution to this problem; IGTV. It's spontaneous video combined with planned engagement strategy will get your small business to the next level.

Selfies, models, celebrities, and pictures of food is what most people think of when they think of Instagram. Beyond the #notfilters and the avocado roses is a useful tool that can build brands on one of the most frequented sites on the internet. Instagram has 800 million users and about 500 million are daily active users. In addition, most of the users are between the ages 13-30, and even more important 73% bought a product or service they saw on Instagram. Creating content on Instagram isn't just about applying filters, hashtags and expecting likes. It's all about targeting your audience, creating a demographic, and cleverly putting your product or service in the forefront without being in your followers face.

According to dictionary.com, a hashtag is "a word or phrase preceded by a hash or pound sign (#) and used to identify messages on a specific topic." Hashtags were made popular by Twitter, as the former 140 character limit, was used to make users messages short and sweet. Today, hashtags are used to not only describe the content of the message posted, but it is also used to convey a feeling for example #boring or #imsodone. In a business sense, hashtags are mostly used to find audiences in social media. Whether it's an audience on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, hashtags are used to gain a following on these channels.

In this age of streaming content, everything can and must be recorded, uploaded, and liked at a customer or users will on social media. While streamed and mostly unsaved content apps like SnapChat have been a popular tool for millennials and Gen Z'ers alike, it also has a growing user base for older generations as well. One of these apps that is gaining traction among the older generation is Instagram. Ever since Instagram was bought out by Facebook five years ago, Instagram has exploded in popularity. Small businesses of all generations have embraced Instagram as more food and lifestyle bloggers discover their favorite cupcake spot.

Since its inception in 2010, Instagram has exploded on to the social media scene as being one of the top social media platforms of the last decade. Filters, tags, and selfies has made Instagram a must-have on every smartphone today and with over 700 million users, Instagram has no sign of slowing down. In 2012, Instagram sold their business over to Facebook, which took it to another level, integrating their features for easier sharing on mobile devices. As a result, ads on Instagram have now become a huge deal.