June is filled with pride, good food, and social tips to help sell your products and services to followers that connect with your account. We also are giving you a visual breakdown to help guide a solid brand platform for all your marketing to follow so that your company shows up consistently, professionally, and distinctly.
BRAND PLATFORM MAP
Set up your company for success by making sure all the building blocks that guide your decisions, your team’s work, and hired vendor’s when carrying out your vision. No one can see what you see till you put it down on paper and a brand is so much more than just a logo. Before we make all the exciting visuals to connect with your audience there are important strategy and business pieces to consider. Review this helpful map to see if you’ve skipped any steps.
Click the image to view our brand building map larger.
Don’t hesitate to reach out if you need help no matter where you are in the process, email studio@harthousecreative.com. Hart House Creative and its world-class creative collaborators can help navigate this process, fill in the gaps, and design rich graphic assets for print, digital, and brand marketing.
Author/Editor: Jennifer Hart
We couldn’t let Pride month go by without showing some love to some amazing artists in the LGBTQ community. Thanks for bringing the positive vibes all!
Ms. Lisa we love the graphic nature of these pieces. The message is clear and urgent but still maintains a positive uplifting feeling. Color for days!
Dorothy your illustrations have such an incredible whimsy to them. So stylish and fresh. Keep them coming!
Violeta ink drawings have a bit of a vintage touch to the line work. Love love love all the fine details. Inspiring! Our sketch pad is calling.
Author/Editor: Jennifer Hart
15 Tips for Selling on Instagram
You could be missing out! Selling on Instagram allows you to reach beyond local clientele. We all love local fans, but social media creates opportunities with broader reach, especially if your local market is already following along to support you.
Increase leads and build more opportunities for more sales by implementing these 15 tips to help sell your brand on Instagram.
1. Use High-Quality Images: We all find ourselves absent-mindedly scrolling on Instagram until an image or video grabs our attention. As a brand, your goal is to share only high-quality images and videos that stop the scroll.
2. User-Generated Content: Encourage your customers to tag you in posts that showcase your product. Consider giving them an incentive to share your product or service in their stories and reels. Viewers are more likely to trust product reviews from user-generated content than a branded post. Instagram is still one of the most widely used social platforms with 1.3 billion active users1. That’s a lot of users to help sell your products for you. 3. Optimize Your Bio: Make sure that viewers know exactly what you’re selling and whom you are on Instagram to help. Be concise and don’t forget to include a link to your website or wherever your product can be purchased. 4. Utilize Stories: Create IG stories that include product links. You no longer need 10k followers to include a link on your stories! Woohoo! So, include links to specific products or your brand’s website as a call-to-action in stories. Consider also using story-building tools in Instagram, such as Polls and Questions that can help you gather information about your audience so you know exactly what they want from your brand. Each day, around 500 million people use Instagram Stories2. 5. Optimize Your Posts: Make sure your feed is shoppable by showing your audience how your product looks, how it can be used, and who uses it. Then give them the instant gratification of being able to click on the products in the post to be directed to where they can buy it. On average, it takes about 8 touchpoints with someone before converting them to a buying customer3 So don’t miss out on any opportunities by forgetting to create links. 6. Make it Exclusive: Offer a discount code or run a giveaway that is only available through Instagram. This makes your audience feel special. They are getting something the rest of the social-verse can’t. It can help increase your following and brand awareness. 7. Partner with micro-influencers: Instagram influencers already have a large, loyal following checking their feed a few times a day for must-have items. Partnering with a micro-influencer can help your brand reach new users. Typically, they have a following of 10,000 to 100,000 accounts. Plus, it can’t hurt, if an influencer tells their viewers they absolutely can’t live without your product. Remember, it’s important to look for influencers that align with your brand. Example: If a brand is selling high fashion clothing and/or accessories, fashion influencer, Lauren Caruso may be a great partner 8. Hashtags: Lately, this has been an ongoing debate in the professional social community – to use hashtags or not to use hashtags. Using the CORRECT hashtags can help boost your post reach and increase your following. This is not a one size fits all approach, though. There is no magical number to use. Hashtags that people in your target audience currently follow or interact with can have the best chance of positive results, but they have to make sense with your post. Blanketing your content with hashtags that are popular but irrelevant to your content does more harm than good. 9. Create Reels: Video content is everything right now. Create Reels to show how your product is used or show behind the scenes footage of how it’s created. Don’t forget to pair your video with trending audio. Most importantly, don’t make it too long. You have 3 seconds to hook someone, so try to keep your Reels to about 10 seconds or less. 10. Carousel Posts: Share carousel posts to keep viewers on your feed for longer. The IG algorithm loves this. The longer you can keep someone on your profile, the better. More content, done well, can help your audience find the products on your feed that they love and may love to buy.
11. Highlights: Create highlights on your profile to showcase products and customer reviews. These live on your profile forever so that people can revisit them over and over again. 12. Have a Business Account: Make sure you have an Instagram business account. With a business account, you gain access to areas in the bio that make your feed look more professional. Also, you will be able to check insights which lets you get to know your audience a lot better. For example, learn what type of content performs the best and the best day and time to post according to past engagement. 13. Go Live: Going live is such a powerful tool. It reveals a face behind the brand, which creates trust. You can do a live unboxing of a new product, give viewers a first look, or share a behind the scenes moment. Choose a well-lit spot. Take the time to think through what else is in the shot with you. Random socks in the corner don’t scream professional. 14. Engage, Engage, Engage: Consistent engagement with your audience on the platform helps build brand loyalty. Brand loyalty is important to encourage leads and audience shares for your content. All these can help to get your products and services in front of even more people. Good vibes all around. 15. Get some help: Everybody needs help. Whether you reach out to Hart House Creative and its professional network or enlist someone else. Figuring out which parts of the process you can delegate to create consistent, creative content is integral to social strategy. Inconsistent posting and poorly done content can quickly create disinterest and drop-offs in your engagement.
Dm @harthousecreative to learn more about how we can help your team with hashtag strategy, content scheduling, content planning, and creation.
Author: Vicki Goebner with Social Philly, Hart House Creative social media partner
Editor: Jennifer Hart
SOURCES:
RESTAURANT WEEK
Food is one of our passions–eating and cooking, so anytime we can celebrate restaurants, chefs, and the amazing gift they bring to the world–We're in. Shout out to a couple of incredible food and beverage clients I worked with while at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas that participated this year for Restaurant Week, check out RestaurantWeekLV.com. @chinapoblano @overlookgrill @estiatoriomilos @blueribbonlasvegas @jaleo @stk @scarpetta
And a couple of local spots we just can’t get enough of...
Author: Kate Frabbiele
Editor: Jennifer Hart
That’s it for this month’s squeeze to get your creative juices flowing. To learn more about brands we've worked with follow @harthousecreative on Instagram or check out the testimonials on our site. Keep creating Hartists!
Hart House Creative Team
Know an inspiring maker? Dm, us @harthousecreative on Instagram for a possible feature, and give us a follow while you're there to fill your feed with positive design and art vibes.