Many unsuspecting users found themselves with a quick ticket to a large following on the platform, lending itself to be deemed as a network for endless opportunities for creators to grow, regardless of the size of their existing audience.

TikTok held their first ever Ready, Set, Grow summit for small and medium businesses on March 24, 2021. The event lasted more than two hours with multiple topics discussed and panelists answered many of the biggest burning questions. We’ll save you the trouble of trying to track down a copy of it online; here are the five biggest takeaways from this year’s TikTok summit.

Just Start

The biggest piece of advice from TikTok experts: Just jump in and begin! Everyone starts somewhere, so don’t feel the need to wait until you have fancy lighting or a nice studio to shoot in. Creators might not feel 100% ready to create perfect content, but the beauty of the app’s culture is any one piece of content can go viral, regardless of its production value.

• • Pro-tip: Make sure you’ve converted your account to a business profile so you’re able to collect insights on your following as well as the audience that is viewing your content. This will help you later down the line when you start thinking of things like a posting schedule.

Join a TikTok Community

TikTok’s algorithm serves you content you watch repeatedly, so blending in with other creators in your vertical will actually get you served to more of your target consumer. When you’re just starting out, search hashtags that relate to your business and join the communities that are using those hashtags. Use those same hashtags on your content to end up on the ‘For You’ page of your ideal consumer. Feel free to put your own spin on trends or content within your vertical so you can stand out among the crowd!

Teach Your Audience Something New

TikTok video’s that teach the viewer something, have shown the most growth. Consumers of TikTok look to the platform for tips/hacks on products they should be using for greater convenience, increased productivity and a better user experience. TikTok also values content on how often it is watched through, or “looped”, so the more views your video gets per one viewer, the better! Content that teaches a skill or shares a set of tips is often watched more than once so it sticks in the viewer’s memory.

TikTok Trends are KEY

Trends are a great way to grow quickly when you’re just starting out. For example, content where fashion influencers follow the same trend and use the same song to show their clothing hauls is a one-stop shop for fashion consumers to find new fashion creators, and therefore new places to shop and new products to try.It’s important to hop on trends early. Trend forecaster and TikToker Jera Foster-Fell recommends how to find trends early:

• • Keep your eye on the ‘For You’ page for trends that repeat themselves across different creators/verticals. Don’t be afraid to put your own spin on it, you might start your own mini trend!
  • Follow trend alert accounts like @gingermarketer or @jera.bean so you can jump on trends early. This will give you more exposure when people go to look through the trend’s hashtag or sound.
  • Use the ‘Discovery’ page to see what trends might be lurking there. They are most often being pushed by TikTok, which will favor you in the algorithm when you participate.

Learn from Others in Your Community

Look through other small businesses profiles and see what trends they’re participating in or what content they’re creating. Interact with this content if you have something to add by ‘dueting’. This helps you build momentum and visibility off the creator who originally posted.This could also start a relationship between you and someone else in your field, which could be a great collaboration opportunity down the line!

Ready to jump into TikTok, but need a helping hand? Reach out to our Influencer Management Team with your questions today. Send us an email at info@findyourinfluence.com

The post 5 Best Practices to Grow on TikTok appeared first on Find Your Influence.

Often, consumers are turning to Pinterest more and more as a search engine than a social media platform. This is wonderful news for bloggers. With so many eyes searching Pinterest, our team has curated a list of five ways to convert your Pinterest following into monthly blog views.

Know Your Audience

What content does your Pinterest audience engage with most often? What about on Instagram, or your other active social media channels? There might be a difference between the two! It’s important to review your Google Analytics to understand the search terms or keywords used most frequently to bring traffic to your blog. Once you have an understanding of what they are coming for, you can lean in and continue to create additional, relevant content to bring them back. And don’t just review your Google Analytics once, consider reviewing every three months to ensure you remain connected with what the audience needs.

Craft the Right Pin to Drive Blog Views

The work you put in with Google Analytics to understand the search terms used to drive traffic to your blog are critical when creating pins. Use those same keywords or phrases within the description of your pins. Think of it this way – if you’re needing ideas on a DIY project, where are you going to look first? Pinterest is a great resource to share ideas and projects, and many users turn to it for inspiration or guidance. Use that to your advantage. If you’re thinking of keywords from the perspective of someone who is searching for your content, it will put your pin front and center to your intended audience.

A pin with an outdated photo isn’t going to get anyone’s attention. Aspect ratios of your images are changing too. Long gone are the long and skinny pins. Today’s Pinners are using a 4:5 aspect ratio on images and engagement is on the rise. 

Play around with the content of your images as well. Do infographics generally perform well for you? Or images featuring people? What are the people in your images doing? This is all vital information to understand when choosing the right image to tell your story.

If you’re not adding a link to your blog within your pin, you’re missing out on potential blog views. Let’s just say you were searching Pinterest for that perfect chicken parmesan recipe. You searched long and hard for just the right one – and you’ve finally found it! You click through to get the recipe, and it takes you to a page you weren’t expecting. What are you most likely going to do? I’m no quitter – so I’d most likely go looking for that recipe on the site it took me to. BUT most pinners would click away and look for another delicious chicken parmesan image. Other Pinners are less likely to re-pin your content if you’re not giving them access to the information they crave. Without repins, you’re missing out on important growth opportunities. If you change the URL on your blog, be sure to change it on your Pin too.

Board Titles Shouldn’t be Bored Titles

Remember those keywords we keep talking about? Consider incorporating a few into your board titles to continue attracting followers. Keep your board title simple and short. Let the reader understand what they will expect to see within your board.

Similar to the importance of images within your pin, images are just as important in board titles. Research shows that blue tones perform better than warmer colors and images without faces perform better than those with faces. Pinners like to imagine themselves in photos and if you add a face, it can detract from them using their imagination. 

If You Blog It, Pin It

You’ve invested time into creating a blog so plan to share it everywhere possible, including Pinterest. Check your Pinterest insights to understand which of your blogs have performed well and then pin them again. It’s also important to note what is trending on Pinterest. Imagine you spent a week writing a blog post about your favorite summer travel spots. Those keywords would likely trend in the spring every year, so re-posting it around that time could lead it to trend again.

Consider adding the “Share to Pinterest” widget to your blog so your readers can share your content to their Pinterest audiences. We haven’t talked about key words for a bit but it’s important to change up the keywords you use in your pin descriptions and see if you can repurpose old blog content to fit a new, trending keyword. Not sure where to find trending keywords? Check out the Pinterest search feature.

Consistency is Key

According to Hootsuite, “The average Pinner types in eight Pinterest searches every month. It all adds up to more than two billion searches, and more than 200 billion Pins saved to more than four billion boards across the platform.” With so much activity, it’s easy to see how quickly your content can get pushed down in a timeline. Remember those keywords? They can help here too!

However, it is important to note that Pinterest rewards active users with more visibility. Also, Pinterest insights can rise and fall consistently, don’t get discouraged! Learn from your insights, and react accordingly.

Understanding and implementing these five strategies can give you the boost you need to help you convert your Pinterest following into more traffic to your blog. As we touched on in each strategy, focusing on the right keywords within your content will be the magic touch to help you grow.

The post Blog Views: How to Gain More From Pinterest appeared first on Find Your Influence.

The idea of blogging may seem out-of-date to some. Did you know that social media influencing began with bloggers in the early 2000’s? With more than 1 BILLION monthly active users on Instagram, it may seem out of place to prioritize long form written content over short form posts. The team at Find Your Influence is diving deep with four ideas that will help you better understand the value of starting a blog.

SEO leads to Credibility

According to newscred.com, the median average time spent with an article published in Q1 2016 was just 37 seconds. The good news is that there is more to a blog than just eyes on the page. Having a blog helps to build credibility. 

If you searched Google for someone’s name and they didn’t have a website, wouldn’t you question if they were legitimate? Even if a blog isn’t used frequently, it can be used as a landing page for people looking for you. When you effectively manage a blog, you are building up your SEO (search engine optimization). 

The SEO of your blog may not seem like a big deal but if you are a food blogger in Arizona and an advertiser searches Google for “food bloggers in Arizona”, they are more likely to find your blog when you are writing content that optimizes for these search results. Even if advertisers don’t want to run a blogging campaign they are able to easily find your social channels.

Blogs Give You Total Control

A blog is the only piece of the web content where you have full control. Although your entire business may take place on Instagram, you are not a shareholder and you do not pay for Instagram. The truth is Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter could all disappear tomorrow and where would your content live? Would your followers know where to find your or interact with you? Committing to maintaining a blog ensures your ability to communicate with your followers at any time.

With a blog, you are able to collect emails of those visiting your site. A blog is one of  the most seamless ways to build an email list. This list is another way to communicate with your followers long term if a social media channel like Instagram was eliminated.

Many blogs have a established a built in following by pushing content out to their email list. For example, I subscribe to Sivan Ayla’s blog, so when she posts new content, I get an email. I’m more inclined to open those emails because I trust her opinion and 80 percent of the time I buy what she’s talking about. Sometimes brands may have low email open rates so engaging with a blogger to push content to a list of dedicated readers boosts the likelihood of the brand being seen.

Many people get put off by the high cost of designing a blog. But there are indeed many affordable alternatives that don’t cost an arm and a leg. If you look around, you can easily find agencies that can design you a website within your budget.

You may even consider a DIY project and build one for yourself! Yes, that is indeed possible. See this blog to start with: Influencer 101: How To Start a Blog.

Blogs are Evergreen

Evergreen content is content that is relevant any time of year and not relevant to a specific season, holiday or event. Evergreen content is not time sensitive and can continue to drive traffic long after it was originally published. 

With a blog, your followers can get more in-depth information about your topic. On Instagram, your followers aren’t looking for a long read but a short caption about the image or video you’ve posted. Longer form content equals longer shelf life.

Blogs Deliver Performance Metrics

Every social media channel have metrics available to show how content has performed. Bloggers are able to get reports on their actual views, whereas with Instagram the publisher can see impressions or how many people were possibly exposed to the post. 

It’s easier to track conversions on a blog and bloggers can see exactly where people are clicking and where they’re going. Bloggers can even see if readers made a purchase from the link in the blog post on some reporting sites (i.e. Shopify).

At Find Your Influence, we understand that all social media influencers are different and each bring their own unique approach to influencer marketing. Content creators who are looking to establish long-term partnerships with brands can be most successful if they have a blog to offer that longer form content option.

To join the FYI community of influencers, sign up today.

The post Why it’s Still Important for Influencers to Maintain a Blog appeared first on Find Your Influence.