We work on social media for most of our clients and the only way we can keep ahead of the game in this ever-evolving world is to fully immerse ourselves in it and become social media gurus. We make it our business to know the ins and outs of industry favourites Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. One of the best ways for us to be the best is to make the Sunny Bird PR channels an example. As the channels change the way they do things, we need to change with them so here we have outlined the changes we’ve made to our own channels as we adapt to achieve the best results.
What wasn’t working
The company Instagram channel was treated in the same way as Facebook and Twitter with the same content duplicated across the platforms. At times it was treated as an after-thought with content posted ‘as and when’ rather than being scheduled. We didn’t invest as much time in the platform when it was first set up as this was before Instagram became the fastest-growing social media channel.
How we made it work
As Instagram grew in popularity, we invested more time in our content and improved the quality of the images. There are now a plethora of photography apps that give photos a professional edge, create collages, videos and animations which we are constantly experimenting with. We update our Instagram a minimum of once a day and try to ensure that it’s a mix of team activity, work achievements and PR advice. The company recently underwent a rebrand so our brand colours have now become an integral part of our instagram colour scheme and we often use post as a way of leading followers to our website.
What wasn’t working
Facebook is a necessary platform for people to use as a way to suss out a new business before deciding to make contact. It’s easy for a business to think ‘social media = free advertising for my business’ but it isn’t all about that. It’s about starting a narrative and creating an online personality for your business that is relatable.
What we discovered through our monthly analytics was that it was mainly all our friends that engaged with us on the Sunny Bird PR Facebook page rather than potential clients. We have existing clients, previous clients, other companies that we work with and our friends as our main audience.
How we made it work
Having learned this we changed our core messaging, we took away any ‘new business winning’ style posts and focussed instead on team news, business wins and local pieces. This has made our Facebook page friendly, likeable and has reduced the amount of people un-following us due to repetitive salesy posts not suitable for them. Increasing engagement and developing our brand’s personality has resulted in a page that welcomes new visitors and will give them the confidence to get in touch with us.
An example of the top performing posts from one month; the first was a video which always acheives high engagement thanks to Facebook's algorithm so we post at least one video a week. The second post performed well as it was a ‘feel good’ team shot and the third performed well as it was shouting out about the success of one of our clients so our followers and hers liked the post.
What wasn’t working
Twitter is more conversational than Facebook and Instagram. The Sunny Bird PR Twitter channel had been posting similar content to the Facebook channel. Posting the same imagery and video content was not proving to be popular and we weren’t utilising Twitter’s conversational functions as well as we could have been.
How we made it work
Recognising that Twitter’s strength is in conversation, we changed our approach and focussed more on starting, joining, commenting on conversations with a mixture of journalists, social media influencers, industry experts and clients.
We found that images and videos weren’t as popular as our PR tips, blog posts or client news so we adapted our posts to reflect this. We post content every day and follow key journalists to make conversation, congratulate them on a promotion or wish them a happy holiday. It keeps us front of mind when speaking to press. Retweeting relevant news and posting work achievements ensures we have a diverse range of content which is appealing to our audience, resulting in an increase in likes, retweets and followers.
If you would like support with your social media, get in touch with the team on
01202 293095 or hello@sunnybirdpr.com