Social Media can be used not just for B2C markets, but also B2B:

  • Facebook: - The world's largest social network.
  • Instagram: - A photo-sharing app with over 1 billion users.
  • Pinterest: - A visual discovery engine for finding ideas.
  • Reddit: - "The front page of the internet”.
  • Snapchat: - Share short, temporary photos and videos - instant communication through your mobile phone.
  • Threads: - The new kid on the social media block.
  • TikTok: - A social media network for sharing videos; which are capped at 60 seconds.
  • X (formerly Twitter): - The online news & social networking site where people communicate in short tweets (maximum 280-characters).

There are other Social Media channels, but the above are the main ones. Once you have mastered these, you will be able to manage any other that you feel may be of interest to you.

See "Getting Started" for points to consider to help you formulate a Social Media strategy:

  • Why use these Platforms?
  • Which Platforms to use?
  • Common Tactical Steps to take (to avoid repeating these in the description of each Platform).
  • Measuring Performance.
  • Using Social Media Automation tools.

N.B. It is not the intention to provide detailed training guides to using these Social Media Platforms - these are only introductions to help you decide which ones could be of interest. However, should you need any training modules, you will find these in the Training & Recruitment section.


Why Use These Platforms?

If you are active in B2C sales - then you will have to consider using Social Media to support and increase your sales. Even if you are not directly involved in the B2C market, but your business clients are, then it can be very helpful to track B2C sales trends to better support your business clients.

  1. They are all free to join: - so there is no direct strain on your sales and marketing budget. (However, Elon Musk is introducing charges for using X.)
  2. Customers Expect It: - They might search for you specifically by name, or by hashtags relating to your business or location. Even if you don’t plan to be incredibly active, the best practice is to create an account that, at the very least, has your business name, contact information, and a few posts to showcase your brand.
  3. (On some) you can make sales directly.
  4. On all of them, you can advertise.
  5. Market Research: - Even if you do not have the resources to be actively involved, they all offer the opportunity to garner useful market information.
  6. Online Reputation Management: - Your online reputation is critical to your business. In the event you do get bad publicity online, you have the possibility to respond directly and turn the situation around. On the other hand, if a client is over-the-moon about a product they just bought from you. It’s highly possible they’ll share the story, and their glowing review is gold.
  7. Networking: - You can like, comment, and send messages to other like-minded businesses or individuals and form a relationship with them over time with meaningful interactions.
  8. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): - In addition to your website, your social channels will usually show up on the first page of the search engine results. For that reason, it’s a best practice to create business accounts on all social networks with your brand name, even if you don’t plan on using them frequently.
  9. You Can Attract Talent: - Whenever people are considering working with or for a new company, they want to know what it’s really like. Giving them a transparent glimpse of behind-the-scenes is a great way to show off your company culture.

Which Platforms to Consider?

  • Facebook: - The world's largest social network with over 1.5 billion daily active users - and growing. Unless you are uniquely targeting Millenials and GenZ (in which case consider Pinterest, Snapchat and TikTok as starting places), then Facebook is a good place to start.
  • Instagram: - A photo-sharing app with over 1 billion users. As this is owned by Facebook, Instagram complements Facebook's services - and you can sell on Instagram.
  • Pinterest: - A visual discovery engine for finding ideas with 459 million active users each month . The platform has historically attracted women and people who want to shop or start a new project. As of 2021, it’s becoming increasingly more popular with men and Gen Z-ers.
  • Reddit: - "The front page of the internet” with over 234 million unique users and 8 billion monthly pageviews. When thinking about how Reddit fits into your business strategy, it helps to consider it as an extension of your public relations activity.
  • Snapchat: - Share short, temporary photos and videos - instant communication through your mobile phone - with over 20 million daily users in the UK . If you are focusing on Generation Z, a presence on Snapchat is a must, as 71% of Gen Z use Snapchat as part of their daily routine (over 50% use Snapchat more than 11 times per day).
  • TikTok: - A social media network for sharing videos; which are capped at 60 seconds, with a monthly user base of 800 million active users (May 2020). The largest demographic of TikTok users is teenagers and young adults, aged 16-24.
  • Threads: - Launched by Meta on the 5th July, 2023 as a direct competitor to X. Here we set out the similarities and the differences with X as well as the business considerations for using this platform.
  • X (formerly Twitter): - The online news & social networking site where people communicate in short posts (formerly tweets). As of July 2023, X claimed that it had 541 million active users worldwide. The platform allows direct two-way communication with your customers. However, it has to be said that there is some uncertainty over a new business\pricing model that is being considered e.g. charging users to access X. It is also now under direct competitive attack from Meta's newly launched Threads service.

Identify your Audience

Take some time to research the platform, understand how it works, the audience "mix" and:

  • Their background knowledge of your industry, products and services.
  • What they want and expect from the platform.
  • What they consider to be their challenges.
  • What are their goals?

Identify and Assess your Competition

Explore their Pages and Posts to evaluate a few key factors:

  • Content mix.
  • Engagement on posts (likes, comments, and shares).
  • Post frequency.
  • Response time and quality of business.
  • Visual quality.

Establish a Clear Social Media Strategy

Whichever Platform(s) you use, you must have a clear social media strategy in place before creating your account.

  • Be Active and Schedule Regular Posts: - Once your accounts have been activated, you must maintain a level of activity of new postings and comments appropriate to the channel; this can be as much as several times a day! Your region, goals, industry, and how your target audience interacts with the social media platform will determine the best times\days to post.
  • Build an Engaging Community: - With helpful and entertaining content that your followers will want to like and share.
  • Compile a List of Relevant Hashtags: - These help users to find your content. (Research the tags used on popular posts for related topics.)
  • Create a Social Media Content Calendar: - This will help you know when to post content, what content to post, and how much time to spend interacting with your followers.
  • Cross Promote: - Add your Social Media Channel links to your: (i) other Social Media Accounts (ii) Email signatures (iii) Newsletters (iv) Website and (v) other Marketing Collateral. (For example, the Facebook iframe code visitors can see your latest posts without leaving your website.)
  • Determine the Brand’s Look & Tone: - Plan ahead so that your Social Media presence looks consistent and is in keeping with your brand’s presence elsewhere.
  • Don't Be Overly Promotional.
  • Don’t Overly Promote your Product: - Make sure to post other interesting content too and reduce product promotion.
  • GDPR: - Don't share anyone's private information. Make sure that you remain GDPR-Compliant.
  • Influencers are Important: - If one of these influencers forwards your content, it could drive a lot of visitors to and increase interactions with your posts. These are the bloggers you want to follow. According to recent data, nearly 86% of marketers have used influencer marketing to generate sales or increase brand awareness.
  • Invite your colleagues to like your Pages\Uploads: - Also ask them to share these with their own friends and connections.
  • Learn to Use Memes: - Try to create posts that contain memes that focus on your product or service.
  • Listen and Curate: - Know Your Audience. The key to engaging your followers is to listen to what they are saying and understand what interests them - and respond accordingly. Comment on their posts and respond to any comments on your page. Engaging your community in a positive way will help you earn their trust.
  • Message Consistency: - Make sure you’re conveying the same message on each channel.
  • Publish Relevant Original Content: - Do not just rehash other people's work.
  • Repurpose your Videos: - If you post videos, look at ways you can use a video editing app to repurpose your videos for each channel where you have a presence; but make sure to project a constant brand image.
  • Research your Competitors: - Which channels are they using? What are they doing effectively\ineffectively?
  • Respond Quickly to Messages Quickly: - Interact with comments on your posts.
  • Share your Social Media Address: - With people you are already connected to (but not with people who won't be interested).
  • Trending Topics: - Take note of what's doing well on the platform and find ways to make these topics work for your business. Just make sure they're relevant to your brand.
  • Write a Mission Statement: - So that your videos, images and statements support these principles.

This does not mean however that you can simply publish exactly the same material and have exactly the same approach for each Social Media Channel. They are all different and will require different treatment - and your objectives for each channel may well be different in the specifics.

Measure Performance

How well are you doing on your Platform(s) of choice? How do you compare with your competitors? Do you have a positive ROI? Why are you active on these Platforms?

  1. Outline Your Objectives: - What is your brand hoping to achieve by being on these channels? How will you measure success? Key Performance Indicators could include views, engagement, lead generation, or a combination of two or more.
  2. Set Goals: - What do you hope to achieve through your activities on Social Media?
  3. Use Analytics: - For each Social Media channel described here, the relevant Analytical Tools are listed.

Social Media Automation Services

Few marketers have the bandwidth to stay on social media all day, curating and sharing content as they go. Managing multiple Social Media Channels requires significant time commitment, organisation and synchronisation. Social Media Automation Services are designed to streamline and support these claims on your time.

The following are some examples of these services. You should check which ones suit your purposes and the channels where you are planning to be active.


Facebook is the world's largest social network with over 1.5 billion daily active users - and growing. Facebook Pages are the gateway for businesses to market to this holy grail of users. A Facebook Page that allows fans to “like” the business, brand, celebrity, cause, or organisation. Fans receive content updates from the Page on their News Feed, while the business is able to raise brand awareness, deploy and track advertising, collect detailed audience insights, and chat with users who seek customer service.

However, be aware, true Facebook marketing requires a consistent, long-term commitment!

How to Set Up a Facebook Business Page

Login with your personal Facebook account and go to Create a Page. Once there, you will have two options: (i) Business or Brand and (ii) Community or Public Figure. Click Get Started under Business or Brand (you’ll be asked for a page name and category. Keep in mind that you can change your category later on, but your page name is forever).

There are 10 steps to the process of setting up your business page (each Facebook Business Page template has preset buttons and tabs that cater to different types of businesses) :

  • Create a Facebook Page (see below).
  • Add Photos: - Profile and Cover Photo (see below).
  • Add a Short Description: - Let people know what your page is about in 255 characters.
  • Create a Username for your Page (max 50 characters): - Adding a username makes your page easier to find because the name appears in your URL (Facebook.com/YourUserName) instead of a string of randomly generated numbers.
  • Add your Page to Shortcuts: - By adding your Page as a shortcut here, it will appear on your vertical navigation bar to the left of your News Feed.
  • Set up Page Roles: - You can authorise multiple people to edit and post from the Page without sharing login credentials. (See Role Options below.)
  • Add a Page CTA (Call to Action): - You can choose from an array of choices depending on if you want to view or book a service, get in touch, make a purchase or donation, download an app, or simply learn more.
  • Organise your Page Tabs: - Add custom tabs to tailor what content users see when they visit your Page.
  • Verify your Page: - A grey badge means that Facebook has confirmed an authentic Page for a business or organisation. To ensure you're eligible, confirm that your Page has a profile picture and cover photo. Go to “Settings” > "General". There you’ll find “Page Verification” where you can enter your publicly listed phone number, country, and language. You'll receive a call with a verification code. (A blue badge means that Facebook has confirmed an authentic Page for a public figure, media company or brand - it’s not possible to request a blue badge.)

Notes/Suggestions:

Social media image size standards are important — if you use the wrong size, you could end up with awkward cropping or pixelated images, so keep these recommended image sizes handy.

  • Facebook profile image size: 170 x 170 to 180 x 180 pixels
  • Facebook cover photo image size: 851 x 315 to 820 x 462 pixels

Your profile picture will appear as your icon every time your page’s content shows up in the Facebook News Feed and when you comment on other posts. Ideally, this will be your company logo. Square dimensions are best, but Facebook will crop the photo into a circle for ads and posts, so leave empty space around the edges. When you upload the image, you can preview the crop and make adjustments.

Your Facebook cover photo appears across the top of your page and is a great opportunity to deliver a visual element that supports your branding, draws attention, or elicits emotion from your visitors. According to Facebook, your cover photo is displayed at different sizes on desktops and smartphones — 820 pixels wide by 312 pixels tall on desktops and 640 pixels wide by 360 pixels tall on smartphones. 820 pixels wide by 462 pixels tall seems to work best for both mobile and desktop. But make sure you keep important text and design elements in the centre of the image and preview how the image will appear on mobile and desktop

Google indexes Facebook Business Pages, so the text you include on your profile can help you rank in global and local search engine results. When you create a Facebook Business Page, you’ll see tips that guide you through filling out all your page information. If you need to go back to make changes, go to your page’s About tab and click Edit Page Info.

  • Categories: – Categories can help people find your page. Choose up to three categories.
  • Contact Information: – If you have a business phone number, website, and email address, add them here.
  • Location: – If you have a physical store, share your address here. You can also include a service area.
  • Hours: – If you are only open during selected hours, state them here.
  • More: – Here you can add a list of your products, price range, and a link to your privacy policy.

All of these details will appear in the About section of your Facebook Page, where you can add even more information, such as your business’ story, awards, menu, etc.

Add Collaborators to Your Page

To add collaborators, go to your page settings and the Page Roles section. You can type in the name of any Facebook friend or person who has liked your page. Alternately, you can type in an email address associated with a Facebook account. Either way, you must be Facebook friends with anyone you add as a collaborator.

Role Options include:

  • Admin: – Complete and total access to everything.
  • Editor: – Can edit the page, send messages, and post as the page, create Facebook Ads, see which admin created a post or comment, and view insights.
  • Moderator: – Can respond to and delete comments on the page, send messages as the page, see which admin created a post or comment, create ads, and view insights.
  • Advertiser: – Can see which admin created a post or comment, create ads, and view insights.
  • Analyst: – Can see which admin created a post or comment and view insights.
  • Jobs Manager: - Jobs Managers can do everything that an Advertiser can do as well as publish and manage jobs.

Optimise your Facebook Business Page

Once you have filled out the basics, you can further optimise your page with customisation options. While on your page, click on the More drop-down menu and select Edit Tabs. From there, you can select templates that cater to different types of businesses such as Nonprofit, Shopping, Services, Restaurants & Cafes, etc.

Types of Facebook Posts

To post on your Facebook Page, simply type in the box below your cover photo - you can add images, photos, videos, run a poll and schedule your post - click on "Share Now".

  • Add a TimeLine Image - @ 1,200 x 650 pixels - if the image is a different size keep the ratio at 1.9:1
  • Share blog posts that will interest your audience. (Write a short introduction - with the link - that will make your audience curious to read the blog.) Include a compelling meta description with each blog post you write. Facebook automatically pulls this in to describe your link.
  • Facebook Videos are now prioritised by the Facebook algorithm. The mp4 and mov files are probably the best formats to post. - Add your video thumbnail and add subtitles and captions.
  • Facebook Live is a feature that allows live-streaming capabilities. (Click on "Live" - under "Write a Post" on your Page. This gives access to your camera and microphone. Complete the dialog box - then click "Go Live" to start your live video.
  • Facebook Instant Articles allow publishers to post text and photo based content that loads onto mobile devices without leaving the Facebook app. Publishers can use Instand Articles by signing up at Instant Articles.
  • Facebook Virtual Reality - a 360 degree video which allows publishers to tell immersive stories. (You will need a 360 degree camera to create these videos.)

You can decide which content sticks to the top of your Page by pinning it. (The option "Pin to Top of Page" in the top right corner of a published post.

Schedule a Baseline of Posts before Promoting your Page

Before you promote your page, publish three to five posts and have at least another week’s worth of content planned out and scheduled. Experiment with different types of social media content such as video, images, short text posts, long text posts, links, Facebook Lives, Facebook Stories, etc.

In 2020, status (text) posts earned the highest average engagement rates, but it’s important to use a range of post types so you can appeal to a larger audience. Remember — the more often people engage with your content, the more often your posts will show up in their News Feed, so understanding what types of content your fans interact with is key.

Generate Sales Leads on Facebook

To turn your Facebook fans into paying customers, you need to be strategic about posting content that directs fans to complete a form. For example, you could post:

  • Blog posts that you know generate a lot of leads.
  • Facebook Events for upcoming webinars.
  • Facebook Lives to remind people to register for an upcoming event.
  • Landing pages for sales offers.
  • Videos to promote lead generation offers.

You can also use Facebook Lead Ads to capture lead information from the Facebook platform. This feature allows potential customers to access your offers without ever leaving the Facebook app.

Advertising on Facebook

Facebook offers a unique opportunity for marketers to drive awareness for their brands, products and services. In Facebook, all paid advertising can be broken down into three elements:

  1. Campaigns: A campaign houses all of your assets
  2. Ad sets: Ad sets are groups of ads that target specific audiences. If you’re targeting multiple audiences, you’ll need separate sets for each audience.
  3. Ads: The individual ads you post on Facebook, each with their own colours, copy, images, etc.

When you create your first advertisement, Facebook offers two choices of editors: Ad Manager (suitable for most companies) and Power Editor (created for larger advertisers who need precise control over a variety of campaigns). To find the Ads Manager from Facebook, go to your homepage and find "Ads Manager" from the left-hand menu. Before you create an ad, you need to choose an objective. Facebook provides 11 to pick from, broken into three categories: awareness, consideration, and conversion. Once you select an objective for your campaign, Facebook guides you through the steps to define the audience, budget, and schedule for your ad set.

Once you’ve defined your campaign and ad set, it’s time to create your ads. In this section, you select the format, media, text, and links to create one or multiple ads. Again, Facebook will guide you through the process - and provide design recommendations.

To see the results of your ad campaign, go back to the Facebook Ad Manager. If you have ads running, you will see an overview of all your campaigns.

Facebook Bots

Facebook's Messenger Platform is a service that enables any business to build a bot through Facebook Messenger. From the perspective of the customer, bots make the shopping and customer support processes much smoother, eliminating the need to scroll through pages and pages of product choices or talk on the phone with a customer service rep.

Analytics - Audience Insights

Facebook offers a powerful, free analytics tool as a part of their ads platform called Audience Insights. This allows you to obtain demographic and behavioural data about your audience and that of your competitors.

Click on the menu in the upper left corner, "Audience Insights" .can be found under "All Tools" > "Plan". You can then choose your audience "Everyone on Facebook" or "People connected to your Page". Create Audience - and specify the characteristics from the options provided. The more you delve into Audience Insights, the more you can determine aspects such as location, device type, and the frequency of engagement on Facebook.


Instagram (owned by Facebook) is a photo-sharing app with over 1 billion users. Instead of words, the platform is built almost entirely around sharing images and videos. ("Instagramming" is now a verb.)

Why Use Instagram for Business?

  • You Can Tag and Sell Your Product: - If you sell products, the ability to share Instagram photos and videos that link directly to those products is a major win. To take advantage of this feature, you need to create a product catalog from your Facebook page (that’s where Instagram pulls the product info from). Instagram Shopping: - According to Instagram, millions of people shop on Instagram every day.
  • It’s a Trust Signal: - Having an Instagram account – especially a verified Instagram account – is one more signal that your business is reputable, real, and transparent.
  • You can Directly Toggle sharing to Facebook or Twitter.
  • Your Competitors Are on Instagram: - If you don’t have an Instagram account and your competitors do, you’re giving them a competitive edge. If you’re unsure what kind of content to post to Instagram, look at what your competitors are doing.

How to Start

To start using Instagram, you'll need to download the app and sign up for an account. It's available for free.

Upon opening the app for the first time, you will be prompted to create a new account, or to log in with your Facebook account. If you choose to open a new account, the process is straightforward: You will be asked for your phone number or email address, full name, plus a username, and password. Once you create an account, it's worth noting that you can create and switch between multiple Instagram accounts without logging out; useful if you wish to run separate accounts for personal and professional use.

When you first set up your Instagram account, you can set up your profile. Your profile page is a hub for all your photos and videos, where you can keep track of who you are following and who is following you. It is also where you can access your settings.

Profile pages are often the first thing people visit, so it's best to keep your username, profile picture, and bio up to date. Your profile picture is the icon that appears with your username all over the platform, while your bio is a space to offer a brief description of yourself or your brand. You can also add a link to your website and your business location.

Keeping up with others on Instagram means making sure you are getting the right notifications, when you want them. The platform gives you the power to choose what push notifications it sends to your device e.g. when you get a new follower or when someone comments on your post.

Every time you open the app, you'll see the main feed of recent posts from the accounts you follow. At the bottom is a menu bar, which is accessible anywhere you are in the app. The five buttons at the bottom of the app are:

  1. Home: Your main feed where you can scroll through photos and videos posted by your friends.
  2. Search and explore: The magnifying glass icon takes you to the Explore page, where you can search and browse content from accounts you don't follow yet but might be interested in.
  3. Upload: The large plus button is how you can upload and edit photos and videos, either by choosing from your phone's camera roll, or opening the camera within the app.
  4. Activity: The heart icon takes you to a page that displays like and comments on your posts, among other activity updates.
  5. Profile: This icon navigates to your profile page that shows your bio and posts. It's also where you can access your settings.

How to Use Instagram

Uploading, Editing, and Posting Photos

To share a photo or video on Instagram, tap the large plus button, where you can select photos or videos from your phone's camera roll to post. Instagram allows you to select up to 10 photos and videos to post at once.

For every post, you can choose to apply a filter. Filters make it easy to edit shots with different visual pre-set overlays. For example, some filters, like "Mayfair," give everything a pink hue; others, like "Willow," turn everything black-and-white.

Once your post is to your liking and ready to go, there are a few more optional things you can do before you hit the "share" button:

  • Add a Caption: - Captions are always a good idea. You can use words, emojis, or hashtags. Just like in comments, you can also "mention" friends by placing "@" in front of their username. Keep in mind you can edit captions at any time — or delete them.
  • Tag People: - Instagram allows you to "tag" someone in your photos. When you tag someone, they will get a notification in their activity feed.
  • Add Location: - Location tags let others know where your photo was taken. Clicking on a location tag brings you to its corresponding location feed.
  • Also Post to other Social Accounts: - Instagram also gives you the ability to publish a post to other social accounts at the same time. By linking accounts, you can cross-post to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.

Exploring and Finding People to Follow

The Explore page lets you search for users and browse content based on your interests. Tapping the magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the app, you'll find a feed of suggested posts based on what Instagram thinks you're interested in. When it comes to interacting with others, Instagram works less like Facebook, and more like Twitter. In most cases, you don't have to send a friend request and wait for the other person to accept it. The only users that you'll have to ask to follow are those who have made their account "Private." When you tap "Follow" on a private profile, you'll have to wait for that user to accept you before you can officially follow them.

Sending and Receiving Direct Messages

In addition to commenting on people's post, Instagram has a direct messaging system that lets you chat privately with anyone who follows you. If you send a message to someone who doesn't follow you, that message will be sorted into its own "message requests" folder. To start the conversation, the person on the receiving end must accept the message.

Once you're in a conversation, you can send all sorts of messages. These include basic text messages, shared Instagram posts, animated GIFs, and more. You can also "like" messages, or delete messages if you no longer wish to see them.

Instagram Features

  • Instagram Stories: - Many people use Instagram exclusively for creating and viewing Stories, which are customizable posts that only last 24 hours. These posts, which could be a mix of photos and short-form videos, are presented in a slideshow format and accessible via the top of the home feed.
  • Instagram Live: - lets you "Livestream" i.e. broadcast live video from your device to anyone who wants to watch. Viewers can send you messages and hearts while you stream, making this a great way to talk to all your followers at once or broadcast an event. You can go live for one hour at a time — after that, the Livestream will end and you will need to start again.
  • IGTV: - Instagram's dedicated long-form video platform, letting users upload videos up to 15 minutes in length (or 60 minutes if you use the desktop version).
  • Instagram Reels: - Built as a rival to TikTok, Instagram Reels lets you record and upload short videos up to 15 seconds long. Once you record a video, you can edit it and add music, text, and special effects.

Instagram Business Tips

  • Download and Back Up your Data: - Instagram has a menu that lets you download every bit of content you've ever posted on the app. This includes your photos, videos, comments, messages, profile information, and more. To download your Instagram data, head to the Settings menu in your app and then select "Download Data." Once there, fill out the form, and your data will be emailed to you within a few days.
  • Posting Different Photo Formats: - If you want to post two common photo types (Panorama Shots and Live Photos) you'll need to make some edits beforehand. If you want to post a panorama photo, you'll have to split up your shots beforehand using a third-party app.
  • Privacy & Security: - Like Facebook, Instagram allows you to control who can see your posts e.g. if you run an account that you don't want users under a certain age to follow, you can set an age limit on your account.

Instagram Analytics

You can use Instagram insights to learn more about your account's followers and performance. You can also view insights on your audience's engagement with specific posts, stories, videos, reels and live videos. If applicable, insights and metrics about your account include paid activity as well.

N.B. This feature is only available for professional accounts in the Instagram mobile app.

The following insights are available on Instagram:

  • Recent highlights: This section announces any notable increases in account performance in your selected preset or custom timeframe within the past 90 days.
  • Overview: This section showcases the number of accounts reached, accounts engaged, total followers and approximate earnings (if applicable) for your selected preset or custom timeframe within the past 90 days. Aggregated demographic data is based on a number of factors, including information that users provide in their Facebook and Instagram profiles. You can tap on each of these metrics for a more detailed breakdown.
    • Accounts reached or accounts engaged: When you tap on these metrics, you'll see demographic information on the accounts that you've reached or engaged, including top countries, top towns or cities, top age ranges and gender breakdown.
    • Total followers: When you tap on this metric, you can learn more about trends across your followers when you have at least 100 followers. These insights include growth (how many followers you've gained or lost), top locations of your followers, age range and times they're most active on Instagram.
  • Content you've shared: This section showcases the content that you've posted and boosted across feed, stories and video for your selected preset or custom timeframe within the past 90 days.

You can also tap View insights under individual posts, videos and reels, or swipe up on your stories and Instagram Live videos, to view insights specific to that piece of content, including:

  • Interactions: This section displays what actions people take when they engage with your account.
  • Discovery: This section keeps track of how many people see your content and where they find it.
  • Ad: This section will provide more information on your post if it's been boosted.


Pinterest is a visual discovery engine for finding ideas like recipes, home and style inspiration, and more. As of 2021, Pinterest is the 14th largest social network in the world with 459 million active users each month. The platform has historically attracted women and people who want to shop or start a new project. As of 2021, it’s becoming increasingly more popular with men and Gen Z-ers.

Pins are bookmarks that people use to save content they love on Pinterest. Pins can be images, videos or products. If you click through the Pin, you can visit the website to learn how to make it or where to buy it. You can also search Pinterest for products to buy. Find a product Pin and click it to visit the retailer's website.

How to Use Pinterest for Business

  1. Carefully Plan your Boards: - As 97% of Pinterest searches are unbranded, your brand’s boards can help reach new Pinners interested in specific topics or learning specific things.
  2. Optimise your Pins for SEO: - Pinterest is a search engine, so make sure your business’s Pins are easy to find in a search! Include keywords in your Pins’ descriptions, on boards and in hashtags.
  3. Try Different Pinterest Ads: - Another effective way to market your business on Pinterest is with ads. Pinterest allows advertisers to target ads around keywords, interests, location, age and other metrics and categories. Detailed audience targeting lets advertisers reach specific groups of Pinterest users.
  4. Try Different Pin Formats: - Pin a video encouraging Pinners to shop at your e-commerce store or try adding multiple photos to a Pin to create a carousel.

Getting Started

Create and Edit a Business Account.

It’s free to sign up and you’ll get access to special content formats, customised analytics and more.

Setup Your Account

Edit Your Profile

Pinterest and Your Website

  • Build Pinterest Widgets for your Website: - Add the Follow button and Pin, board and profile widgets to give people more ways to interact with your Pinterest account from your website.
  • Save Button: - When you add the Save button to your site’s pages, your customers can save things straight from your website to Pinterest, allowing even more people to discover your content.
  • Pinterest Crawler: - When a genuine Pinterest crawler visits your website, it will send a valid Pinterest user agent and connect from a network operated by Pinterest.

Features and Tools

  • Messaging for Your Business: - To be contacted by Pinners, first you need to opt in to enable the experience. When you opt in, your profile will be updated to include a message button that will allow anyone visiting your page to get in touch.
  • Manage Interactions with the Engagement Tab: - If you have a business account and claimed your website or published content on your profile, you can use the engagement tab on your desktop to like, highlight or respond to comments on your Pins in one place.
  • Protected Boards: - Protected boards live at the very bottom of your profile in a section only visible to you. Pins on a protected board may surface in search results and other people's home feeds, but other people can only access the protected board if they have a direct link.
  • View Pinterest Trends: - Pinterest Trends shows a historic view of the top search terms and topics in the US, UK and Canada within the past 12 months.

Advertising on Pinterest

  • Brand Safety: - As we improve our controls, we’re also expanding yours. Advertisers know best what is suitable for their brands. So, whether or not you spend with Pinterest, you get access to moderation tools that allow you to set the tone around your brand.
  • Pinterest Ads: - Pinterest is the only platform where ads are additive. Pinners find what they love. You grow your business.
  • Shopping Solutions: - It’s simple to get started with shopping on Pinterest. Upload your product catalogue, then layer on ads to keep growing your audience and sales.
  • Using Ads Manager: - Ads Manager is where you create, manage and report on your Pinterest campaigns.


Pinterest Analytics

Use our Piniterest's analytics and measurement tools to optimise your creative, fine-tune your targeting and help to improve your results.

Analytics and Measurement.

  • Pin Stats: - Click on an individual Pin to see metrics such as impressions, saves and clicks.
  • Pinterest Analytics: - Use Pinterest's analytics suite to get a more in-depth view of your Pinterest engagement.
  • Ads Manager: - Create and download custom reports about campaign performance.


Pinterest Glossary

Pins and Pin Formats

  • Carousel Pins: - Instead of just one image, carousel Pins feature multiple images. Up to five images can be added to a carousel Pin.
  • Collections Pins: - This Pin format makes it easier for Pinners to shop for similar products. When a Pinner clicks on the magnifying glass in the bottom right corner of a Collections Pin, white dots will appear.
  • Idea Pins: - This is a new Pin format that isn’t widely available yet. Idea Pins can be used to promote your brand in a new way, by customizing the colors and fonts in your Pin, creating step-by-step guides or curating collections.
  • Pinner: - LinkedIn has members. Snapchat users are Snapchatters. And Pinterest has Pinners. In other words, a Pinner is the branded term for a person who uses Pinterest.
  • Pins: - A Pin is a primary post published on Pinterest. Pins include images or videos and can link back to an original source, much like a website bookmark.
  • Promoted Pins: - Promoted Pins are a kind of Pinterest ad. They are Pins that companies have paid to promote so that more Pinners are likely to see them. These Pins appear in the home feed, category feed and search results, and include a “Promoted” label. Promoted video Pins, carousels, and app Pins are also available.
  • Repins: - Think of a Repin as a share on Facebook or a Retweet on Twitter. A Repin is when someone Pins a post they like (but that they didn’t create) to one of their boards.
  • Rich Pins: - Rich Pins automatically pull more information from your website to the Pin. The point is to provide more information, such as product availability and up-to-date pricing. Rich Pins.
  • Try on Product Pins: - This is another new Pin format that isn’t widely available yet. Try on Pins use augmented reality (AR filters), allowing Pinners to virtually “try on” products they see on Pinterest using the Pinterest Lens.
  • Video Pins: - These are much like regular Pins, but instead of a static photo, they feature a video that loops.

Boards and Board Types:

  • Boards: - Think of Pinterest boards as digital mood boards. Use boards to save, collect and organize your Pins. Many use boards to group Pins according to a certain theme or topic. For example, you might create a board around the planning of a product launch event, for seasonal content, or for wedding inspiration.
  • Group Boards: - Group boards are the same as regular boards, except more than one person can add content. This format is ideal for marketers looking to share ideas or plans with their team, as anyone can contribute.
  • Protected Boards: - Similar to secret boards, protected boards live at the bottom of your Pinterest profile and only you can see them. However, the Pins on these protected boards can be seen across Pinterest if a Pinner has a direct link.
  • Secret Boards: - A secret board can only be seen by its creator and invited collaborators. When you create one, you’ll see a lock symbol beside the board name. These are useful for planning you don’t want to be public — secret boards won’t appear in the home feed, in search, or anywhere publicly on Pinterest.

General Pinterest Terms:

  • Audience Insights: - Pinterest business accounts have access to important metrics and analytics via Audience Insights.
  • Pincodes: - Pincodes are essentially QR codes. These codes can be placed on hard copies of marketing material (like a business card or a press release) and scanned using Pinterest Lens — the codes then link back to a Pinterest board or profile.
  • Pinterest Lens: - This augmented reality tool is available on mobile devices only. Pinterest Lens is a camera tool that lets users take a picture of something — like a product or a Pincode — and then they can find related content on Pinterest.


Reddit: With over 234 million unique users and 8 billion monthly pageviews, Reddit is the 17th most visited site online. Reddit considers itself “the front page of the internet” because its primary focus is on social news aggregation. The core functionality of Reddit is that users submit content and then others upvote or downvote that content. The most popular threads rise to the top. Reddit as a whole is carved into thousands of individual communities organised around topics or interests.

Using Reddit For Business

Reddit generally hates shameless marketing, self-promotion, URL shorteners, and anything that makes you seem like you're only using Reddit as a place to sell your products or services. When thinking about how Reddit fits into a business strategy, it helps to consider it as an extension of your public relations activity. It’s an opportunity to talk directly with your target audience, be a part of the communities that matter to your brand, and build real relationships with those communities.

Speaking and engaging freely with others is how you get the most out of Reddit. - If you think, Reddit would help your business but you need help with managing your Reddit campaign, then SocialRise can help you gain more OnlyFans - the more Redditors notice you, more of them become paying subs. (If you're not sure, you can try the service for free.)

How to Make Reddit Work for your Organisation?

  • Curate Viral Content: - Reddit is an endless source of good content. By subscribing to the subreddits that relate to the niche you're selling in, you'll get a steady stream of top quality content to curate: articles, videos, GIFs and more.
  • Customer Service and Community Management: - Monitor Reddit for brand mentions. - for potential purchases, company complaints etc.
  • Do an Ask Me Anything: - Raise your company's profile and build your personal brand by doing an AMA on Reddit.  Post in r/AMA, or find a relevant post and comment on it with "I Am the CEO of ______. Ask Me Anything."
  • Hire Local or Remote Talent: - You can use Reddit to find and hire specific talent.
  • Market Research and Feedback: - You can ask subscribers to give you feedback about your website or product idea.  (Be careful and transparent about doing this in non-business related subreddits.)
  • Pay for Reddit ads: Advertising on Reddit is probably among one of the safest ways to market your products on Reddit. With Reddit ads, you can target people based on the subreddits they've subscribed to, which lets you get in front of some very specific, super-passionate niches.
  • Promote Deals in the Right Subreddits: - There's a subreddit for everything and that includes deals. If you've got a discount code or are running a sale, you can share it in communities such as r/deals.
  • Run a Contest in a Subreddit: - Running a contest can be a good way to engage a subreddit. If you want to run a contest or giveaway, you can reach out to the mods of a subreddit and work out an arrangement.

Best Practices:

  • Be a Member First: - Few people trust a brand-new user account with no posts save for the ones made to promote products or services. Be a genuine participant before you start marketing and immerse yourself in how things work, from comment threads to inside jokes.
  • Give More than You Take: - Most Reddit communities ask that you contribute 80% of the time and only self-promote 20% of the time. Depending on your content and your target community, that ratio can go up or down.
  • Post Original Content and Engage in a Genuine Way: - Do not just take your daily Facebook post and dump it into a subreddit. If you can become a valuable, contributing member of the community, you can unlock a new stream of fans for your brand.

Getting Started:

  • Create an Account: - Register for a Reddit account. Consider picking a username that includes a brand keyword as well as a personal name. If you can attach a real person to your marketing activity, everything will feel more authentic. Once you've signed up, you'll be automatically subscribed to several popular subreddits like r/videos and r/gifs, but you should also subscribe to other subreddits you want to be a part of based on your interests.
  • Build Your Feed: - Look for all of the subreddits that might be relevant to your brand. Then try to uncover smaller, more niche communities (look at the recommended communities within a subreddit sidebar, make a Google search for “Reddit + [keywords]”.
  • Listen and Lurk: - Check in on Reddit daily and browse your feed and view discussions. Start upvoting and adding comments where you can contribute. Get a sense of what kinds of content your target communities find engaging.
  • Build Up Your Participation: - Before you start submitting original content, adopt a regular commenting rhythm. Contribute, take the time to engage in discussions and answer questions.
  • Share Unique, Original Content: - The key to your success.
  • Be Consistent: - Keep at your Reddit activity. Play the long game and continue being an active, worthwhile contributor to the community.

What Can You Post?

  • AMAs: - “Ask Me Anything” threads invite Redditors to ask a person any question they want. People or brands with unique stories to tell or who have a large reputation find a lot of success with AMAs. AMAs often take place in the subreddit r/IAmA, but interest-focused subreddits also frequently host AMAs.
  • GIFs: - Reddit loves GIFs, including sports, events, movie scenes, animations, cute animals, and redubbing scenes from pop culture with inside Reddit jokes. GIFs are the bite-sized versions of videos.
  • News: - The speed of the internet makes Reddit a powerful hub for breaking news. In communities tied to timely updates (politics, video games, movies, etc.), sharing a piece of news can make you a hit. Sometimes this news is a fresh tweet from a thought leader or the first article on what could become a major issue for a community.
  • Pictures: - Still images are mobile-friendly and require very little attention for initial engagement.
  • Text: - Many subreddits thrive almost exclusively on text-based posts and discussions. Many Redditors love in-depth content and thought-provoking discussions, making text their preferred format.
  • Video: - In general, linking out to platforms like YouTube or Vimeo will yield relatively low engagement. If you can pull the best part of a video into a GIF and then link to the full source in the comments, you’ll likely see more engagement.

There are two types of submissions you can make on Reddit:

  1. Links: Take visitors directly to a webpage or piece of content when they click through on your post.
  2. Text Posts: Expand into a text-based post that you can format and add links to provoke a discussion.

You can find hundreds of brands and business leaders doing the above - including, perhaps, your competitors.

The Importance of Karma

Get enough upvotes and comments in a short amount of time, and your post could end up at the top of the subreddit and then eventually the front page of Reddit where millions of people will see it. The Karma system is how Reddit establishes credibility. The more Karma you have, the more seriously Reddit will take you. But there are two kinds: "Post Karma" and "Comment Karma". You get "Post Karma" for the upvotes you get on posts and "Comment Karma" for the upvotes you get on your comments.

There's no easy way to build Karma on Reddit. You'll need to consistently contribute to Reddit in meaningful ways. However, there are strategies to help you get going: 

  • Make a list of very niche subreddits that you’re in a good position to contribute to because you’re an expert or enthusiast. Then go to the “new” tab and see if there are any relevant questions you can answer.
  • Go to r/AskReddit and ask/answer questions for post and comment karma.
  • Make an effort to incorporate Reddit submissions into your regular day-to-day browsing. When you find something worth sharing, post it on one of the highly active subreddits on this list, wherever it would be most relevant.

Other Reddit Features

  • Reddit Coins: - Coins are a virtual good you can use to award exemplary posts or comments. Support Reddit and encourage your favorite contributors to keep making Reddit better. Spend your coins on these Awards reserved exclusively for the finest Reddit contributors. Awarding a post or comment highlights it for all to see, and some Awards also grant the honoree special bonuses.

  • Premium Awards:
  1. Silver Award: Shows a Silver Award on the post or comment and ... that’s it. You’ll need 100 Coins.
  2. Gold Award: Gives 100 Reddit Coins and a week of r/lounge access and ad-free browsing. You’ll need 500 coins.
  3. Platinum Award: Gives a month of r/lounge access and ad-free browsing, and 700 Reddit Coins for that month. You’ll need 1800 coins.
  • Reddit Premium:
  1. Ad-free Browsing: Enjoy redditing without interruptions from ads.
  2. Exclusive Avatar Gear: Outfit your avatar with the best gear and accessories.
  3. 700 Monthly Coins: Get 700 coins a month and make it rain awards.
  4. Members Lounge: Discover all the illuminati secrets in r/lounge.
  5. Custom App Icons: Change your app icon to something more your style.
  6. Powerups: Help select communities unlock perks.
  7. 1,000 Coin Bonus: Claim this one-time-only welcome gift.

Reddit Tools

  • Reddit Enhancement Suite: - This Chrome extension makes Reddit many times better, from making it easier to format posts to letting you quickly check up on specific users. It basically gives you some of the features of the premium Reddit Gold membership and more for free.
  • SocialRise: - Find the best time and day to post to a specific subreddit and schedule your posts to go out at that time. This is invaluable insight for giving your posts the best chance of getting seen.

Reddit Analytics

  • Reddit Insight: - Analytics dashboard built for Reddit.
  • RedditMetis: - Gets the list of the last 1,000 comments and 1,000 submissions of a Reddit account and visually shows user statistics.


Reddit Glossary:

  • AMA (Ask Me Anything): An invitation for Redditors to ask any questions they may have with the promise that the user will answer. It usually starts with “I Am A [something unique/interesting about you], Ask Me Anything”. Visit r/AMA for examples.
  • Downvote: - A negative vote that indicates a post or comment is irrelevant, promotional, or doesn’t contribute any value.
  • Flair: - Added as part of your display name within a specific subreddit (some are defined by the mods, and some let you create your own). Sometimes the subreddit's rules will require you to use a Flair to indicate you are a specific type of poster.
  • FTFY (Fixed That For You): - A correction made regarding a typo, a factual error, or sometimes used as a tongue-in-cheek comment.
  • IRL (In Real Life): - Synonymous with the offline world and refers to your actual experiences outside of your online Reddit identity.
  • Karma: - There’s post karma and comment karma, both of which reflect the quality of your account on Reddit. These points are awarded based on the upvotes you get from your actions on Reddit, and only exist to give the community a sense of your legitimacy and experience as a Redditor.
  • Lurking: - Actively consuming a subreddit, but not actively contributing to it. Many people use Reddit this way.
  • Mod (Moderator): - An account that polices the subreddit to make sure its rules are being followed with special permissions to ban and remove users, posts, and comments as they see fit.
  • NSFW (Not Safe For Work): - Explicit or inappropriate content you might not want to open in a public place. This is usually found in the post's title to warn people before they click the link.
  • OC (Original Content): - Content that isn’t reposted from elsewhere, but is something a user has created themselves.
  • OP (Original Poster): - Referring to the person who shared the post that the comment is made on.
  • Reddit Gold: - A premium Reddit membership with additional features that can be bought for yourself or awarded to users who you think have made a significant contribution to Reddit.
  • Repost: - Posting something that has already been posted in that subreddit. Try to avoid this by searching the subreddit to see if your link has already been shared.
  • Shadow Banning: - Since a person with a banned account can just go make another one, "shadow banning' is a special punishment where the user is unaware that they are banned because, instead of having their account shut down, all of their future posts are essentially made invisible to everyone else.
  • Throwaway account: - A Reddit account that isn’t a user’s main account and wasn’t made for long-term use. A user can have several accounts made for different occasions.
  • TIL (Today I Learned): - Something the user didn’t know before, but now knows (probably) because of the internet. There's an entire subreddit for these lessons in r/TodayILearned.
  • TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read): - A short summary briefly describing a large body of text, usually in a lengthy text post.
  • Upvote: - A positive vote that indicates a post or comment contributes value to the subreddit or discussion.
  • X-post (Cross Post): - Sharing a post from one subreddit to another by submitting the URL of the original submission on Reddit and adding to the title that it's an "X-post from [original subreddit]". This is considered the proper way to share something across multiple subreddits. 

Reddiquette: Understanding the rules of Reddit. You can read up in full about Reddit’s own guidelines or Reddiquette, but it boils down to one simple rule: "Aim to contribute value with every action and consider the community first." Each subreddit also has its own rules and guidelines, which you can find on the right sidebar. Ignoring the rules can get your post deleted or get you banned from the subreddit.


Snapchat is a social media app that allows users to share short, temporary photos and videos with over 20 million daily users in the UK (October, 2021). The key thing to realise about Snapchat is that it is all about instant communication through your mobile phone. If you are focusing on Generation Z, a presence on Snapchat is a must, as71% of Gen Z use Snapchat as part of their daily routine (over 50% use Snapchat more than 11 times per day).

Snapchat is a unique tool for businesses to connect with customers. The average consumer isn’t checking your website on a daily basis for any updates; but they are checking Snapchat every day.

Why Use Snapchat for Business?

  • To Drive Traffic to your Website:- Snapchat recently introduced a new feature that allows you to add links to your story.
  • To Promote a New Product: - You can build hype and anticipation—consumers will be ready for it when your product is released.
  • To Promote an Upcoming Event: - Try to get your followers to come and show their support.
  • To Promote Your Brand: - Get your brand noticed.

What Information to Post?

  • Inform your Followers about Important Company Milestones: - Keep your Snapchat audience informed about important dates for your company.
  • Inform your Followers about New Products: - Give them a compelling story as to why your products are so good.
  • Offer Discounts and Promo Codes: - When in doubt what to post, give your followers something they can actually use. Send out discounts and other promotional offers via Snapchat.
  • Provide Exclusive Access: - Provide your followers with behind-the-scenes content or if you’re at an event, take snaps of some of the action backstage. This type of content will keep your followers engaged because it makes them feel as if they are getting special treatment.
  • Reply to Your Followers: - On Snapchat, only you and the person sending the message know whether you’re responding. Getting a personal response from a brand will make the user feel special. Ignoring their message shows them you don’t care about what they have to say - and therefore likely to lose you business.

Advertising\Brand Promotion on Snapchat

There are three main options for advertising and brand promotion:

  1. Traditional Ads: - These are 10-second, full-screen, vertical videos and can offer some type of interactive element, such as a call to action to visit a specific link. You can target your Snapchat ads to a lookalike audience. That means Snapchat helps you reach people who might be interested in your brand because of their similarity to other Snapchatters who are already interacting with your brand. You can also target ads by the age of the user, by location, by their specific interests, or by their previous interactions as a customer of yours.
  2. Sponsored Geofilters: - For example, if you use Snapchat in any McDonald's with your location settings on, a McDonald's themed geofilter will appear while flipping through your different filters before sending a snap. You can do the same. They can be also applied nationwide under a certain theme or holiday.
  3. Sponsored Filters & Lenses: - People love to use Snapchat filters and lenses. Although Snapchat has plenty of them built directly into their platform, businesses can create sponsored filters as well. The filters themselves are often silly, but they create brand awareness and help you create engagement.

How to Open a Snapchat Account

(Registration can only be done on a mobile device.)

  1. Download the App: - Find the free app in the App Store (for iOS devices) or in the Google Play Store (for Android devices).
  2. Set Up your Personal Account: - Snapchat is an unconventional social network in that it doesn't allow users to customise an extensive profile. However, it does offer space for users to provide some information about themselves, such as adding a bitmoji and username.
  3. Set Up your Snapchat Business Account: - By accessing Ads Manager. You’ll log in using the same username and password that you set up for your regular Snapchat account. Enter your business’s legal name, choose which country you’ll be doing business in and choose your currency and payment method. After verifying your age, enter a username that represents your business, followed by a strong password.
  4. Enter your phone number to get the verification code. (You can also sign in with your email address).
  5. Once you feed in the verification code, tap on the Continue button, and the Business Account is created automatically.

Other Things To Do After Setting Up Your Business Account

Create an “add me” URL: - Click on the settings icon in the top right-hand corner when in your business’s Snapchat account. Then, click on ‘username’ in the dropdown list. This will show you what your unique “add me” URL is for Snapchat.

Create a Snapcode_ - A snapcode is a badge that people can scan using their phone or tablet. Scanning this helps Snapchatters find you easily and quickly. It works much like a QR code. (This could include your website, your email signature, your newsletter, send a text message and more.) You can add your business’s snapcode to marketing merchandise as well.

For even more details on how to create a Snapchat Business account, watch this video.

Interacting with Other Snapchat Users

There are several ways to interact with other Snapchat users. Unlike most social networks, these interactions are all private, except for the stories feature.

  • Adding Users: - To add users to your friends list, you'll need to search for their usernames. You can also connect to your phone's contacts list.
  • Viewing Stories: -You can view and reply to other users' Snap stories. They will be notified of both.
  • Sending Snaps: - You can send and receive a photo and video content with other users.
  • Instant Messaging: - With the instant messaging feature, you can chat privately with users.
  • Sending Snapcash: You'll need to activate this feature in your Settings and link with a credit or debit card.

Suggestions for Generating New Followers

  • Let Social Influencers Take Over Your Account: - If you allow an Influencer (with the right kind of established following) to take over your Snapchat account, you can expose your brand to a much wider audience.
  • Feature User-Generated Content: - Ask your followers to send you pictures and videos of them interacting with your brand or using your products. (Encourage user-generated content is by running contests and similar promotions.)
  • Take Over Another Account: - When you take over an account (with an established following), won’t have to do anything. It will be your job to convince the audience to follow your brand. Even if they don’t add your Snapchat account, you’ll still be able to create brand awareness with a new audience.
  • Post Relevant Content: - You can use this platform to show your audience your brand is aware of various topics. (But it’s best to stay away from issues involving race, religion, politics, and other controversial topics.)

Snapchat Analytical Tools

See :Snapchat Insights: - The built-in analytics tool, to see who is viewing your content, understand what content is performing well, and drive a Snapchat strategy that works. If you need more support, we suggest that you visit Snapchat’s support hub.


Snapchat Glossary

3D World Lenses: - Unlike Lenses, which are primarily applied to your face, World Lenses affect the environment around you. They appear in the same row as Lenses, but only when your camera is facing outward.

Bitmoji: - If you have downloaded the Bitmoji app (Apple Store or Google Play), created an avatar, and linked your account to Snapchat, you’ll see AR-based lenses featuring your avatar as well as stickers in chat with your avatar. Bitmoji are designed to encourage user interaction on Snapchat.

Chat: - This is a messaging feature within Snapchat that lets you directly chat with other users.

Discover: - This is a section, right of the Camera screen, meant for brands and publishers, which can broadcast stories for all to see.

Filter: - You can jazz up your snap by adding a fun overlay with a filter. After you take a snap, swipe right or left on the preview screen to add coloured filters, the current time, local weather, speed overlays, or geofilters to your photo or video. After taking your snap and applying your first filter, you can press and hold and then swipe to add yet another filter.

Geofilter: - Like filters, you can use a geofilter to decorate snaps. Unlike filters, however, geofilters are specific to your location or an event you’re attending. On-Demand geofilters may also be designed and purchased by individuals or smaller companies and only become available when a user enters a specified location or event.

Lenses: You can aad augmented reality-based special effects and sounds, with a feature called Lenses. To activate lenses, go to the Camera screen in Snapchat, then long-press on your face in the camera view, and lenses should appear in a row next to the capture button. Swipe around to select the lens you want, and then tap the capture button to take a snap with it.

Memories: - Snapchat has added several features that allow you to screenshot or save snaps. The latest example is Memories. It not only gives you another way to store snaps in Snapchat’s cloud but also introduces a section for accessing media locally stored on your device.

Score: The number next to a friend’s handle in Snapchat? It’s a score - combining the number of snaps they've sent and received, stories they've posted, and other factors. You can find yours under your Snapcode located in the centre of your Profile screen.

Snap Map: - With this feature, you can share your location with your friends or followers. It also allows you to scroll around an actual map to see where your friends are located.

Snap: When you take a photo or video, or receive a photo or video, it is known as a “snap”. When someone asks you to snap them, they are asking you to send them a photo or video via Snapchat, or a message through the app’s chat function.

Snapback: If you "Snapback", you’re just replying to a private one-on-one snap that you’ve received.

Snapcode: This is a scannable code that makes adding new friends even easier. A friend can simply flash their Snapchat camera at your Snapcode, which will immediately add you, without you having to manually look up their handle and tap the “add” button.

Story: You can link snaps together and broadcast them as you capture them. They’ll appear to your followers as a “story” reel. They can tap through your story and watch every snap to experience your entire day. A reel can only be played back for 24 hours, after which, it disappears for good, though you can always save your entire story, or an individual snap from your story, to the Memory section of your Snapchat.


TikTok is a social media network for sharing videos; which are capped at 60 seconds – with a monthly user base of 800 million active users (May 2020). The largest demographic of TikTok users is teenagers and young adults, aged 16-24. It is famed for viral dance trends, lip-sync videos, and challenges. It is now home to hundreds of thousands of influencers, publishers, celebrities, and household brands.

The majority of TikTok’s content is light, whimsical, and entertaining. The bottom line is that businesses that thrive the most on TikTok are ones that post videos that are fun, light-hearted and visually pleasing, and that follow popular trends.

Why Use TikTok for Business?

Modern-day users consume maximum content through videos, and thus you should look at your users as a part of a community. Sharing ideas through videos, and invoking the interest of like-minded people is what matters. Generation Z doesn’t like to be bothered by advertisements, and that is the reason why 51% of them use ad-blockers. TikTok can be considered as advertising that doesn’t look like advertising. So, you should consider using TikTok if:

  • You’re looking to expand awareness of your business/brand to a younger audience.
  • You can easily showcase your products/services in a video.
  • You’re comfortable sharing light-hearted brand content.

How to Generate Followers

  • Brand Collaboration: - When a brand hires a content creator (like a TikTok influencer) to make branded content for them.
  • Perform Duets: - Linking up with other TikTok users is an ideal way of expanding your fanbase, and it will also promote your content to other groups of people. Thanks to the duet functionality of TikTok, you can perform a song with another person without necessarily having met face-to-face.
  • Share User-Generated Content: - If people are mentioning your brand on TikTok or sharing videos hyper-relevant to your industry, ask if you can share that video as well!
  • Upload Videos Daily: - People that follow your account expect to find more content in your feed. Failing to post in several months can send your TikTok followers away.
  • Use Hashtags associated with the trends, phrases, or topics you cover in your video: - it is recommended to use hashtags that are relevant to your video rather than hashtags like #FYP.

Content Suggestions

  • Authenticity: - Most users make videos with their phone and natural lighting. Take the same approach with your content.
  • Comedy: - Users come to TikTok for an escape, so post videos that make people smile.
  • Create a TikTok challenge: - TikTok is famous for is its various video challenges, whether they’re dances, dares, etc.
  • Magic Ingredients: - Consider including popular crowd-pleasing elements in your videos such as animals, children, food and tips.
  • Relatability: - Users watch, share and like content that they understand and can relate to.
  • Use Faces: - You interact with your audience as a group of people rather than a business. Users aren’t looking to watch objects; they want to watch people.

Advertising on TikTok

The first step is simple: start by creating an account on the TikTok Ads Manager. Once your brand is approved, log in to your dashboard and finish the initial account setup- just follow the instructions.

TikTok Ad Manager gives you access to TikTok ads' family of apps giving you numerous options when deciding what type of placement is best. will determine where your ads appear on TikTok (and its partner platforms e.g. Vimeo and Canva). You can then configure your targeting after this, where you’ll have the option to target users based on demographics. This includes location, gender, age group, language and interest category.

There are currently five different ad formats:

  1. TopView: - The ad users see when they first open the app. TopView videos can be up to 60 seconds long and are full-screen with both sound and autoplay. You can also add links to internal or external pages to drive traffic to your website.
  2. Infeed Videos: - Ads that pop up in between user content. These ads can help you increase clicks, web traffic and downloads. In-Feed Ads are 9-15 seconds long and appear in between user videos as you scroll through the “For You” page.
  3. Brand Takeovers: - Allows brands to take over TikTok for the day and create images, GIFs and videos that link to webpages or promote hashtag challenges. Similar to TopView, this is a full-screen static or dynamic display that delivers a stronger visual impact. This type of ad allows you to dominate the conversation as your message takes over the whole screen for a few seconds. It then turns into an in-feed video ad.
  4. Hashtag Challenges: - Give users the ability to participate and build content around a specific campaign theme - to increase engagement and awareness. When a user clicks on the sponsored hashtag, they’re immediately redirected to a landing page that features the sponsor’s logo, website link, challenge description, and the most popular videos that are currently using the hashtag.
  5. Branded Effects: - Branded lenses that businesses can put in the foreground or background of videos. Your ads can also appear as branded stickers, lenses and other types of AR content so TikTok users can use them in their videos.

You also have the option to choose between different calls to action depending on what you want your audience to do.

TikTok Tools

TikTok for Business: - A Step-by-Step Guide to TikTok Ads Manager.

TikTok Creator Marketplace: - Helps brands find TikTok users to partner with. It lets you access the influencers’ engagement, reach, demographics, views, and much more.

TikTok Analytics

TikTok Analytics is organised into three main categories:

Overview: - To see follower growth, video views, profile views, likes, comments, and shares over the last 7, 28, or 60 days, or a custom date range up to 60 days; using metrics such as likes, comments, and shares.

  1. Content: - For extended data and analytics for each video you post; such as total views, total likes, comments, shares, average watch time, watched full video (percentage of viewers who watched the entire video), traffic source type (where viewers found your videos, including your profile, the For You feed, etc.), and audience territories. Content metrics are available for the last 7 days only.
  2. Followers: - Highlights insights about the community you’ve built on TikTok; like where your audiences are from, times of the day or week when followers are most active on TikTok, and the change in follower growth compared to the previous period.

(Creators with LIVE access can also view their analytics (for the last 7 or 28 days) on the LIVE tab, home to information like total views, new followers, total time, Diamonds earned in the last 7 days or 28 days, and more.)


Threads. The new kid on the social media block.

Threads was launched by Meta on the 5th July, 2023 as a direct competitor to X (formerly Twitter). But is it? Below we lay out the main similarities and differences between the two services.

We then set out the business considerations to be taken into account when deciding whether you should sign up for a Threads account. (Download the app from App Store or Play Store.)

According to recent statistics (September, 2023) Threads currently has 130 million users against the 541 active users claimed by X. Despite an initial massive surge in subscribers, in 2 days Threads reached 70 million users – but since then growth has slowed significantly. This would suggest that Meta has significant work to do to overtake X (or Elon Musk has to continue to create such confusion that X collapses from its own problems).

N.B. As competition between the two is fierce and both are reviewing exactly what their service offerings should be, the comparisons we provide may well be out of date in the near future.

This section was written in October, 2023. Updates will be provided as services develop.


Integration with Instagram

The first point you should take into account is that despite being an independent app, Threads is an integral part of Meta’s Instagram. Without an Instagram account, you cannot access Threads.

When creating a profile, the app will give the option to import bio information and followers from an existing Instagram profile. From this point onwards, the two profiles – in Threads and Instagram – are linked.

The Threads layout is similar to an Instagram feed.

Threads allows you:

  • To share posts from Threads directly to Instagram Stories.
  • To follow the same people you follow on Instagram.

Threads will have the same content rules as Instagram, with the same controls for muting and blocking harassing accounts.

A verified Instagram account can keep their blue badge on Threads.


Threads vs X

There are a number of similarities between the two services but also some significant differences.

Similarities

  • You can share text updates and join public conversations.
  • Posts can be up to 500 characters in length (in most cases X Posts are limited to 280 characters).
  • You can also include links, photos and videos up to 5 minutes in length (X has a shorter limit for unverified accounts).
  • You can initiate polls.

Differences

These all favour X.

  • Currently, X offers DMs (Direct Messages), Threads does not.
  • X has a strong hashtag presence, but Threads does not support hashtags.
  • Threads can only be accessed from your smartphone or by installing an Android emulator on your PC.
  • X's homepage allows users to view what's trending and other topics they may be interested in. For now, the only way to explore what's on Threads is by scrolling through the home feed.
  • The threading experience is also different. A user has to hit enter three times to start a Thread. On X, it can be done by clicking on the plus button.


Advertising

Threads has launched without ads. Therefore, from a user’s point of view, this is a positive point. From a business point of view, this means that you should consider Threads purely as an additional communication channel to your Instagram followers; at least for the time being.


Conclusions

  • If you have an active Instagram account, you should definitely consider signing up for a Threads account.
  • If you do not already have an Instagram account, Threads is not for you.
  • If you do have an Instagram account but it’s not very active, Threads is probably not for you – but perhaps having a Threads account with regular posts, the service could be an accelerator for you.
  • If your main market is the EU, Threads is not for you until and unless the EU block is removed.

However, given that Meta is one of the biggest players in the online world, even if Threads is not yet for you - and you're active in the B2C space - then keep an eye open for future developments.


X (formerly Twitter) is an online news and social networking site where people communicate in short messages called Posts (formerly "Tweets") (maximum 280-characters). Another description of X and tweeting might be microblogging. As of July, 2023, X claimed 541 million active users worldwide.


Does this change of name matter? - The short answer is that it is too early to tell. In itself, probably not. What is more likely to have an impact is:

  • X's stance on moderation. If X becomes a place where hate, misinformation and lies can be propagated, then you can expect advertisers (and many users) to abandon X.
  • X's business model is also unclear - at least for the moment. If the service is to become open only to subscribers so that the majority of users lose free access, then you can expect the subscriber basis to shrink significantly. This in turn will have an adverse effect on advertisers and their willingness to maintain current spending levels.
  • Will Meta's Threads service eat into X's user base?

N.B. You may also see that the transformation is not yet complete. There are still many links which include "twitter" in the string.


Why Use X for Business?

X can help you reach a wide audience and connect with your customers.

  • Reach a Wide Audience: - X has a large user base. Using hashtags, you can reach an audience interested in a particular topic or in a particular location.
  • Deliver Customer Service: - The platform allows direct two-way communication with your customers.
  • Enhance Your Brand Identity: - Being on X can help communicate your brand ethos and personality.
  • Feedback: - X can be a useful resource for gathering feedback from customers.


X for Business – Best Practices

  1. Don’t forget CTAs entirely: - It’s important to build your business’s X community, but that community isn’t an end in itself. The traditional best practices of ad copy still apply on X.
  2. Engage in conversations: - If you’re just broadcasting out into the X-universe, it’s easy for your audience to tune you out. The more engagement you get, the more visible you are. Start conversations by using quote Posts or tagging other accounts. You can also run a poll to turn your X communication into a two-way street.
  3. Keep it short: - Simple, clear messages are the best way to get your point across on X. The 280 characters are a limit, not a goal.
  4. Know How Often to Post: - Knowing how to pace your X use is a delicate balance. Post too little, and users forget about you. Post too much, and they get annoyed and ignore you. As a rule of thumb, it’s best to Post more than one or two and fewer than three to five times per day.
  5. Know when to Post: - Recency is one of the most important factors in determining which Posts get seen. So don’t waste your perfectly crafted content by Posting it when no one’s around to see it.
  6. Post with emojis: - Using emoji in your Posts conveys emotion and does it concisely, two qualities that X users love.
  7. Post with visuals: - Twitter is mostly a text-based environment; so, images and videos stand out. Posts that include a visual element generate more engagement than those that don’t. Posts with an animated gif, for example, generated 55% more engagement than gifless Posts.
  8. Write organically: - X users respond to brands that don’t sound like brands.


Advertising on Twitter

Advertising on X helps you promote anything from a single Post to an entire account. With no minimum budget, there’s an X advertising option that will help any brand get noticed. X Ads offers 20+ product options to showcase your content and media in the best format possible.

Advertising on X is especially attractive because you’re not just reaching X users when you Post. You’re also reaching a wider audience of non-members who also read X.


Getting Started

First sign up for a personal account. Then, to use X effectively for your business create an X Verified Organization Account..

Your profile includes the following four elements:

  1. Profile and Header Photos: - Represents your account everywhere on X. Most companies include their logo in their profile image.
  2. Display Name and Account @name: - The name of your account. It doesn’t change. You can change your display name, but it’s best to set it as your organisation’s name and leave it at that.
  3. Bio: - Your brand’s elevator pitch. Writing a good X bio is an art in its own right. Just don’t forget to include a link to your website.
  4. Pinned Post: - The first piece of content users see when coming across your profile. It isn’t required, but it’s a great place to highlight your latest news.


Apply for X Premium ID Verification (formerly Twitter Blue)

Apply to verify your account - Getting that blue check next to your account name increases the trust users put in your business. You also receive prioritised support from X Services, allowing you to quickly receive the support you need.

X Premium costs USD 8 per month.


X Developer Platform

  1. X Analytics is a robust platform that uses graphs and reports to provide insights into your Twitter activity. You can use it to determine the days and times your audience is most active or analyse your ads’ return on investment.
  2. The Twitter API allows you to make programs that interact directly with Twitter (apply for a developer account).