Jan 25 2024
What Is Social Media Automation? Top Tools and Tips

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If you’re like us, you prefer fun jobs over tedious tasks. (Actually, if you were into tedium, you probably wouldn’t be reading this blog in the first place.) That’s why you’re going to love social media automation tools.

Social media automation tools allow you to automate boring, time-consuming tasks so you can get back to the fun stuff, like creating stunning content.

In this blog, you’ll learn how to automate tasks on social media with tools that help you improve response time, reduce the time spent on repetitive tasks, and give you the insights you need to create more engaging content.

Bonus: Get a free social media strategy template to quickly and easily plan your own strategy. Also use it to track results and present the plan to your boss, teammates, and clients.

What is social media automation?

Social media automation is the process of using tools or software to manage repetitive tasks on social media platforms, like posting content or producing reports, without manual labor.

Tools that automate post-scheduling, basic customer service, and analytics reports can save social media managers valuable time for higher-priority tasks.

What can you automate in social media marketing?

You can automate many (but not all!) tedious social media marketing tasks. And don’t worry—we’ll get to the software tools that can take care of these tasks for you at the bottom of this post.

Some aspects of content creation

Let’s face it: we can’t always be the Vincent Van Gogh-esque creative geniuses we often are. Sometimes, we’re more like Vincent Van No. But, if you need a hand brainstorming content ideas, you can always turn to a generative AI tool to help you out.

Look, you can (and should) automate text-based content, visuals, and videos using generative AI. But you absolutely need to review and edit AI-generated results. AI isn’t perfect (none of us are), but it’ll give you that get-up-and-Gogh boost you need.

ChatGPT prompt brainstorm a social media campaign for December

Source: ChatGPT

Social scheduling and publishing

Switching between different social accounts to publish multiple times per day can take up a lot of time. Especially because the best time to post and content best practices vary by platform.

Automatic social media posting saves time and increases efficiency without reducing content quality. Once your content is locked and loaded, you can use automated social media posting to schedule the appropriate pieces and post times on each network. Then sit back, relax, and let the robots take your posts over the finish line.

Basic customer service

The Hootsuite 2023 social trends report saw a massive dip in online customer satisfaction rates. But why are people so unhappy? Once the world officially reopened (bye-bye COVID), business owners stopped paying attention to online customer service.

So, what does this mean for your business? There’s a gaping hole in the ecommerce market, one you can fill with better customer service. And one way to do that is to use customer interaction automation.

You don’t need a human team member to answer common questions like “What are your hours?” and “Do you have any coupons available?” Likewise, you can automate service requests related to package tracking, refund status, and other issues tied to your CRM.

Conversational AI tools can handle more basic work without drastically affecting your business’s bottom line.

WestJet virtual assistant answers to upcoming flight and travel related questions

Data collecting

Automated data collection makes analytical reporting and decision-making a lot easier. Luckily, social media marketing automation was practically built to take care of the tedious number crunching you truly hate.

Automated data collection can include things like:

  • Platform-specific social data, like the best time to post on Instagram vs. TikTok
  • Post engagement stats, like likes, comments, shares, and more
  • Keyword or hashtag tracking, which allows you to see exactly what people are saying about your brand, themes related to your industry, and your competitors

If you find the right tool, you can even automate your reporting, generating client-ready dashboards and reports with just a few clicks.

Hootsuite Facebook pages Best times and days to publish graph

Source: Hootsuite

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Common mistakes when automating social media marketing

DON’T put all of your faith in your tools

A poor builder blames his hammer when the house falls down. When you publish a “Don’t worry, be happy” post the same day as a global tragedy, the same goes for you.

tl;dr? Don’t set it and forget it unless you want your house to topple. Automating social media marketing doesn’t mean you flip a switch and walk away.

It’s important to monitor any automated outputs, including your publishing schedule. That way, you can make any adjustments required in real time.

World-changing crises happen all the time on social media. A poorly timed post can make your brand look out of touch or tactless.

DON’T use spammy bots

Just because some tools exist doesn’t mean you should use them. Remember: use bots for good, not evil. Embrace bots that help improve customers’ lives and your own.

AI tools that speed up customer service response times? Great. An inbox to manage DMs, comments, and tags from multiple networks in one place? Excellent.

But bots that automatically comment on or like social posts? Not such a good idea. They can cause lasting damage to your relationships with your audience. They can also land you in hot water with the social networks themselves.

DON’T cross-post without customizing

Cross-posting the same content to multiple social media accounts might seem like the easiest option. But it’s certainly not the most effective.

Some tools (including social media platforms) allow you to automatically cross-post to other platforms. Don’t be tempted.

Social platforms have different image display ratios, character count limits, and social features. Audiences on those platforms have different expectations, demographics, and word preferences. It’s highly unlikely that your link-heavy Facebook post, for example, will perform as well on linkless Instagram.

Instead, take the time to adjust your message for each platform’s audience. At the bare minimum, you’ll want to review:

  • User handles, which can vary between platforms
  • Image specs, like file type, size, cropping, etc.
  • Text, including platform character count and platform-specific language
  • Hashtags, including number and usage

Instead of cross-posting, use automated social media publishing at set times to use your time most efficiently.

4 top social media automation tools

1. Hootsuite

Number one on our list is Hootsuite (what, are you surprised?). Hootsuite provides a comprehensive social media management platform that offers a wide range of automation features. We’ve got so many features, in fact, that we broke them out one by one below.

Hootsuite streamlines your social media marketing efforts, making it easier for you to manage all of your social accounts from one place. In our humble opinion, it’s the best social media automation tool.

Price: Free trial, followed by a tiered paid subscription starting at $99/month.

This tool is best for: Medium-to-large teams, social media marketers, and content creators.

Here’s a breakdown of Hootsuite’s key automation tools and why you should care about them.

OwlyWriter AI

OwlyWriter AI is Hootsuite’s AI-driven, social-media-specific content-generating tool. Use it to save major time generating and testing social media captions.

OwlyWriter AI Instagram caption generator

Key features:

  • Rapid content generation. Create engaging and relevant social media posts in seconds, saving you time and creative energy.
  • Instant insights. Automatically identify and repurpose your top-performing posts—without manually reviewing your past content.

Best Time to Publish

Timing is crucial; you want to post when your audience is happily browsing. Hootsuite’s Best Time to Publish feature analyzes, optimizes, and automates your posting schedule.

Best Time to Publish feature on Hootsuite

Key features:

  • Data analysis. Analyzes your audience’s online behavior to determine the ideal times for posting.
  • Improved visibility. Automatically schedule content for maximum reach and engagement. Increases the chances of your content being seen by your target audience.

Analytics

Most social platforms offer native analytics tools. But it can be a huge drain on your time to analyze each platform separately and compile manual reports.

Hootsuite Analytics makes this process a lot simpler. Create custom boards that show you an at-a-glance view of the metrics you want to track. Then, use automated reporting to export and send data to clients, managers, or yourself without lifting a finger.

Once you’ve set up your reports, you can measure your content performance as often as you like. You’ll get real-time updates and high-level overviews for quarterly or annual reviews.

Hootsuite Analytics brand awareness page impressions and reach

Key features:

Social Advertising

Hootsuite Social Advertising allows you to test hundreds of Facebook and Instagram ads and automatically reallocate your budget to the best-performing ones. It ensures you’re targeting the right audiences with the right metrics for maximum ROI.

You can automatically boost your budget or even start a new campaign based on pre-set triggers. This tool will even provide daily automatic ad performance recommendations.

Hootsuite Social Advertising also syncs your CRM or email list to your Facebook ad account, so you always have up-to-date custom audiences.

Hootsuite Social Advertising amount spent and post organic impressionsKey features:

  • Campaign management. Create, launch, and manage social ad campaigns from one platform.
  • Targeting options. Reach your ideal audience through advanced targeting capabilities.
  • Budget control. Set and monitor ad budgets to optimize your ROI.

Inbox

Hootsuite Inbox allows you to manage conversations and mentions across all of your social platforms from one dashboard. You can also use the Saved Replies feature to address common interactions automatically.

Key features:

  • Unified inbox. View and respond to messages from multiple social media platforms in one place.
  • Workflow management. Assign tasks to team members and streamline your response process.
  • Real-time engagement. Enhance customer service by quickly addressing queries and feedback.
  • Customer feedback. Automatically trigger customer satisfaction surveys.

Hootsuite Inbox insert reply

2. Meta Business Suite

If you primarily use Meta platforms, Meta Business Suite provides some great tools to help you automate your social media posts, Stories, ads, and analytics.

Just a note: You can create and schedule posts in the Business Suite, but only for your Meta accounts. If you’re a content creator or marketer on LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, or Twitter, you may want to use third-party social media automation software.

Meta Business Suite is a good tool for smaller teams who are only on Instagram and Facebook. If you’re a larger team with needs like content approval workflows, then you should consider Hootsuite.

Meta Business Suite Manage Facebook page and Instagram for Wairco brand

Source: Meta Business Suite

Key features

  • Scheduling. Scheduling capabilities for Facebook and Instagram
  • Reporting. Analytics for Facebook and Instagram
  • Media. Free music library

Price: Free

This tool is best for: Smaller teams only on Facebook or Instagram

3. Brandwatch

This tool helps automate social listening by analyzing social conversations in real-time. It provides alerts of spikes in social conversation or sentiment. This automatically informs you of potential crises or viral hits before they happen.

As far as automation tools for social media go, Brandwatch is like your resident watchdog. You set up a few different listening streams, then watch it work for you.

Oh, and best of all, this tool can integrate with Hootsuite.

Brandwatch Insights total mentions and mention volume over time

Source: Brandwatch for Hootsuite

Key features:

  • Instant analysis. Real-time analysis of social conversations offers up-to-the-minute insights into what’s happening in your industry or among your audience.
  • Alerts. Receive alerts for spikes in social conversation or shifts in sentiment, allowing you to proactively address potential crises or capitalize on viral trends.
  • Integration with Hootsuite. Seamlessly integrate Brandwatch with Hootsuite, bettering your social media management capabilities.

Price: Brandwatch offers various pricing tiers to suit the needs of different businesses, from small startups to large enterprises.

This tool is best for: Brandwatch is ideal for businesses looking to automate social listening, monitor their online reputation, and stay ahead of trends and potential issues in real time.

4. ChatGPT

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT can help with social automation in more ways than you think. Yes, this powerful tool will write captions for you, but it can also help you brainstorm content calendars, rewrite old content or strategies with a new lens, and kickstart your content ideation.

One small disclaimer: ChatGPT is a tool that needs to be trained. You’ll likely have to spend some time figuring out which prompts will work for your brand. It also doesn’t do much for big social pain points like automatic posting, changing formats, and understanding the algorithm. So, you’ll have to keep a keen eye on the outputs.

ChatGPT write a social media calendar for Hootsuite for the month of November

Source: ChatGPT

Key features:

  • Personalization. You can use it to tailor your content to your brand’s voice and style, ensuring consistency, but it does take some experimenting with different prompts.
  • Brainstorming. Receive fresh perspectives, new angles, and ideas for your social needs.
  • Instant output. Immediate results can save you time and effort.

Price: Free! Paid accounts start at $20/month.

This tool is best for: Content creators, social media marketers, and teams of all sizes.

Save time managing your social media and get your content seen using Hootsuite. Schedule and publish content, engage your audience, and measure the performance of all your accounts, across multiple networks—all from a single dashboard. Try it free today.

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With files from Christina Newberry.

Do it better with Hootsuite, the all-in-one social media tool. Stay on top of things, grow, and beat the competition.

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Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Jan 24 2024
10 Social Media Customer Service Templates for 2024

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Picture this: You’re in the middle of a social media crisis (oh no!), and you have thousands of messages flooding your inboxes. But wait! All you and your team need to do is grab a social media customer service template and hit Reply All.

Even if you’re not in crisis mode, templated responses or messages can save you tons of time and improve your social media customer service.

This blog has every and any social media customer service template you could ever want. (Hootsuite to the rescue, amiright?) Copy, paste, and save these for a built-in response to anything your audience throws at you. You’re welcome.


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What are social media customer service templates?

Social media customer service templates are pre-written, standardized responses. They’re designed for use by busy social media marketers and content creators when interacting with customers and followers on social media platforms.

These templates help streamline communication and ensure a consistent and efficient approach to addressing inquiries, comments, reviews, and other forms of engagement on social media.

Why are social response templates so handy?

Social response templates are one of the best time-saving tools, but they have other knock-on benefits, like boosting your social CRM. Here are a few reasons why you’ll love having them readily available.

Save time

Social response templates save valuable time by giving you plug n’ play, ready-to-go responses. They eliminate the need to craft individual responses for common customer inquiries or interactions.

Instead of typing out the same responses repeatedly, marketers can simply grab a template and customize it as needed.

Ensure consistency

Maintaining a consistent brand voice and messaging across all social media interactions is crucial.

Templates help ensure that responses align with your brand’s tone, style, and key messaging, making building a strong and recognizable online presence easier.

Plus, if you’re getting trolled online, it can be easy to lose your cool. Templated responses ensure emotional consistency, too.

Enhance efficiency

Templates make managing a high volume of customer inquiries and comments easier. They allow marketers to respond quickly and efficiently, especially during peak engagement times.

Want to increase your efficiency even more? Pair your templated responses with a platform that has a social inbox. A social inbox allows you to respond to messages from all of your social media platforms in one place (cough, like Hootsuite, cough).

Psst: Interested in more customer service SaaS? Check out the 6 best customer service tools for 2024.

Keep your information accurate

Any good template should be reviewed and approved before being implemented. This process guarantees that your team is supplying accurate, up-to-date information and responses. This reduces the risk of providing incorrect or outdated information to customers.

Manage customer expectations

Templates can be tailored to set clear expectations, such as response times or next steps. This helps answer questions before they’re asked and fosters a positive customer experience.

Best practices for using templated responses

Before we give you the goods (AKA our social media response examples), we first need to let you in on how to make the most of your templates.

Keep the following best practices in mind when you operate:

Customization

While templates save time, you will want to customize the responses to each situation. Personalizing your templated response to address an individual’s needs will help you establish a connection with them. This helps your audience to feel seen and heard.

In the social media customer service example below, you can see the representative used the customer’s first name and offered their own name.

Air Transat personalized customer service message example with name

Use a social media management tool

Tools like Hootsuite Inbox are key when it comes to managing templated responses. You’ll have all of your messages from all of your different platforms in one place, making it so you can:

  • Filter messages to the right department for a response with automated message routing.
  • Input your templated responses as auto-responses and saved replies.
  • Track the history of communication between an individual and all of your brand’s social media accounts (so you’ll know which messages have already been sent and exactly how to personalize responses).
  • Add notes to your customers’ profiles (so any member of your team knows what they need to know about your customer when personalizing templated responses).
  • Handle messages team-wide with features like task assignments, statuses, and filters.
  • Track CSAT metrics across all communication channels.
Hootsuite Inbox insert reply

Training

Train your social media community management team on when and how to use templates effectively. Ensure they understand the importance of personalization while using templates as a starting point.

Stay updated

It’s a good idea to assign either a time in your monthly schedule to evaluate your templates or have everyone on your team look for outdated templates.

Social media trends, customer expectations, and your products or services may change—your templates should change with them.

A/B testing

The templated responses below are a good start, but you’ll still want to A/B test them. A/B testing will show you which kind of message works best for your audience. Adjust and refine your templates based on the feedback and engagement they generate.

Continuous improvement

Collect and analyze customer and team feedback to understand if your templates are serving your social media metrics. Adapting to your customer’s needs and changing social media dynamics will help you meet your goals.

10 social media response examples for any situation

Here are ten social media customer service examples and templates to use at your leisure.

Responding to negative reviews or comments

Mejuri Instagram comment reply to negative review

Source: Mejuri on Instagram

Template 1: Apologetic and proactive

“We’re sorry to hear about your experience. We take your feedback seriously and are working to address this issue. Please DM us with more details so we can make it right.”

Template 2: Empathetic and resolution-focused

“Thank you for sharing your concerns. We’re disappointed to hear about your experience, and we’d like to make it up to you. Please message us with more information, and we’ll do our best to resolve this for you.”

Template 3: Gratitude and assurance

“We appreciate your feedback, even if it’s not all positive. We’re committed to improving and would love to hear more about your concerns. Please reach out to us privately so we can address them.”

Customer praise

Template 1: Grateful and friendly

“Your kind words made our day! We’re delighted to hear that you had a great experience with us. Thanks for being an amazing part of our community!”

Template 2: Personalized and appreciative

“We’re thrilled to read your positive feedback, [Customer Name]! We’re so glad we could meet your expectations. We look forward to serving you again soon.”

Template 3: Sharing the love

“Big shoutout to [Customer Name] for the fantastic review! Your support means the world to us, and we can’t wait to continue exceeding your expectations.”

Handling a crisis on social media

Template 1: Transparent and informative

“We’re currently experiencing technical issues, and we’re sorry for any inconvenience this may be causing. Our team is working tirelessly to resolve the problem. We appreciate your patience.”

Template 2: Apologetic and responsive

“We sincerely apologize for the recent issue. We’re actively investigating the matter and will keep you updated on our progress. Thank you to everyone who brought this to our attention.”

Template 3: Assurance and support

“We understand your frustration, and we’re committed to finding a solution. If you have any questions or need assistance, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our support team. We’re here for you.”

Responding to customer inquiries

Template 1: Prompt and helpful

“Hi [Customer Name], we’re here to assist you! Please DM us with your order number and any questions you have, and we’ll get back to you ASAP.”

Template 2: Friendly and personalized

“Hey [Customer Name], thanks for reaching out about [specific issue]. We’d be happy to help with the [Questions or Concern]. Just send us a message, and we’ll assist you right away.”

Template 3: Informative and resourceful

“Hello there! You’ve got questions, and we’ve got answers. Check out our FAQ section [link] for quick info, or DM us, and we’ll provide all the help you need.”

Responding to positive comments

Template 1: Grateful and positive

“Wow, thanks for the love, [Customer Name]! We’re thrilled to hear you’re enjoying our [product/service]. Your support made our day!”

Template 2: Reciprocal and appreciative

“Your kind words warm our hearts, [Customer Name]. We’re grateful to have such amazing customers like you. Your satisfaction is our top priority!”

Template 3: Celebratory and interactive

“High-five, [Customer Name]! Your positive vibes are infectious. Let’s keep the good times rolling. What’s your favorite thing about [product/service]?”

Engaging with user-generated content

Template 1: Uplifting and encouraging

“We’re loving this amazing photo you shared, [Name]. Your creativity is inspiring! Keep tagging us in your posts. Who else wants to join in?”

Template 2: Appreciative and supportive

“Thank you for showcasing our [product/service] in such a fantastic way, [Name]. We’re honored to have you as a part of our community!”

Template 3: Encouraging participation

“They say a picture’s worth a thousand words, and your content speaks volumes, [Name]! We want to see more. Share your photos with our products and use [Branded Hashtag] for a chance to be featured on our page!”

Responding to a complaint when the solution isn’t instant

Template 1: Acknowledgment and assurance

“We’re sorry for the inconvenience you’ve experienced. We understand your concern, and our team is actively working on finding the right solution for you. Your satisfaction is important to us, and we appreciate your patience. We’ll keep you updated as we work to resolve this.”

Template 2: Empathy and next steps

“We understand the frustration this situation must be causing you. While we can’t provide an immediate solution, rest assured that we’re dedicated to resolving this issue. In the meantime, please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or need updates on our progress. We value your understanding.”

When refunds are late

Template 1: Apology and explanation

“We apologize for the delay in your refund. [Reason here: This could be a high volume of requests or necessary wait times]. We understand your concern and are working diligently to process your refund as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.”

Template 2: Assurance and resolution

“Your refund is important to us, and we’re sorry for the delay. Our finance team is actively working on processing it. We’ll make sure to expedite the process, and you should receive your refund shortly. Thank you for your understanding, and please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions.”

Celebrating milestones

Template 1: Excited and grateful

“We’re over the moon to reach [milestone] with you! Thank you all for your incredible support. Here’s to many more [milestones] together!”

Template 2: Reflective and thankful

“As we hit [milestone] with you, we can’t help but look back on our journey. It wouldn’t be possible without wonderful people like you. Thank you for being a part of this incredible ride.”

Template 3: Humble and motivated

“We’re humbled to reach [milestone] with you, and it only fuels our determination to keep doing what we’re doing. Thank you for being here!”

Responding to hateful or trolling comments

Template 1: Calm and respectful

“We value constructive feedback, but let’s keep the conversation respectful. Feel free to share your concerns without the insults.”

Template 2: Deflection and positivity

“It’s unfortunate to see negativity, but we choose to focus on the positive energy here. Thanks to everyone who supports us and spreads good vibes.”

Template 3: Reporting and moderation

“We’re committed to maintaining a safe and welcoming community. Please report any inappropriate comments or messages, and we’ll take action accordingly.”

Save time managing your social media and get your content seen using Hootsuite. Schedule and publish content, engage your audience, and measure the performance of all your accounts, across networks—all from a single dashboard. Try it free today.

Save time on social messaging with automated responses, smarter workflows, and friendly chatbots — all in the Hootsuite Inbox.

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Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Jan 24 2024
WhatsApp Emoji: How To Use Them and What They Mean

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Have you ever misunderstood a WhatsApp emoji meaning?

Much like going in for a hug when a handshake was intended, emoji faux pas can be embarrassing. Maybe your friend came to you with news of a recent breakup, and you reacted with the tears-of-joy 😂 emoji when you really meant to use the sobbing 😭 emoji. Awkward.

And when it comes to miscalculating WhatsApp emoji meanings, the stakes only get higher for business owners or social marketers. If, for example, you use the eggplant 🍆 emoji in the wrong place, you could offend your audience or even lose out on business.

To be absolutely sure you’re not miscommunicating, you need to be on the up-and-up with emoji meanings on WhatsApp. Find everything you need to know about emojis and WhatsApp below.

Bonus: Here’s everything you need to know about Instagram emojis and secret TikTok emojis.

Bonus: Download a free guide to discover which hashtags to use to boost traffic and target customers on social media. And then learn how you can use Hootsuite to measure results.

WhatsApp emoji translator

Quick tip: Puzzled by WhatsApp emoji meanings but in a hurry? Use Hootsuite’s free emoji translator. It breaks down each emoji’s meaning and how people typically react to it. It’s an emoji cheat sheet you’ll want to keep in your back pocket!

What are WhatsApp emoji and where can you use them?

Emojis are small pictorial symbols that convey emotions, expressions, and reactions in text messages, social media messages, and more.

WhatsApp emojis, in particular, are specific to the app. While they serve the same purpose, they look slightly different than those you see on other apps, like Instagram and TikTok.

But why do WhatsApp emoji matter to business owners and marketers? If you have a more casual tone of voice, want to be relatable, or are trying to reach a younger demographic, you’ll want to incorporate emojis into your WhatsApp marketing plan.

To use WhatsApp emojis, head into a conversation and tap the smiley face icon. You’ll see the whole selection of WhatsApp emojis here; tap one to select it. To switch back to your keyboard, tap the keyboard icon.

You can use WhatsApp emojis in your day-to-day business comms. Do you have a WhatsApp business account? If not, find out why you should get one and how to sign up.

WhatsApp emojis can add depth and nuance to your business communication, helping you convey emotions, reactions, and sentiments more effectively. They are especially valuable when you want to maintain a friendly and approachable tone while engaging with colleagues, clients, or customers on the platform.

You can use them when providing customer support, troubleshooting, or in your team-to-team communication on the app. You can do so in one of two ways:

  1. As an addition to your text, or
  2. As a reaction to a message

WhatsApp emoji reactions add an emoji to a message, using it to communicate a sentiment.

How do you use WhatsApp emoji reactions?

When someone sends you a message, you can respond with an emoji directly on their message. Here’s the step-by-step:

Step 1. Press and hold the text box you want to respond to.

A few popular emoji reactions will pop up.

popular emoji reactions in WhatsApp message

Step 2. Choose one of the suggested emojis.

Or you can click the plus icon for the library of WhatsApp emojis.

recent emoji examples with smiley faces and people

Step 3. Click the emoji you want to use.

Of course, each emoji has its own meaning. We’ll dive into the meaning of WhatsApp emojis below.

Step 4. If you’re happy with your selection, you’re done!

If you want to change your emoji, press and hold it to bring up a new box.

Step 5. Click “Tap to remove” to delete your selection.

message reaction screen and option to remove emoji

This screen will also show you who has reacted to the message with which emoji.

Step 6. Repeat steps 1-3 above to choose a new emoji.

Some things to note: You can only react with one emoji per message, but you can change that emoji as many times as you like. Reactions to deleted or disappearing messages will be removed along with the message.

Bonus: Take a look at the Discord and Snapchat-specific emoji meanings.

Popular WhatsApp emoji and what they mean

Curious what the 🥰 means in WhatsApp? Or what the combination 🥺 👉 👈 means? We’re here to help. Here are some of the most popular emojis on WhatsApp and the context they come with.

Psst: Find a full list of emoji meanings here.

List of individual WhatsApp symbols and their meanings

Emoji WhatsApp emoji meaning
✨ Sparkles The sparkle emoji, occasionally called the stars emoji, is used as a form of ✨emphasis✨. It’s equally used to denote positive emphases, like love, excitement, or newness, as it is to denote a sarcastic or mocking tone.

For example, one could say, “My boss gave me more work for the same amount of money ✨blessed✨”
🥰 Smiling face with hearts The smiling face with hearts emoji expresses a burst of affection. Use this emoji when you want to show gratitude and love.
🥺 Pleading The pleading emoji essentially denotes the puppy-dog eyes of light-hearted begging or wanting something very badly.
If you aren’t wearing your glasses, the holding-back-tears emoji looks a lot like the pleading emoji. These emojis can be used to express similar sentiments.

But holding-back-tears emoji can express a range of emotions, including a pained smile or someone putting on a brave face while they’re upset. It can also express the feeling of experiencing something overwhelmingly cute or joyful.
❤️ Red heart The red heart emoji is the universal signal for love, thanks, and gratitude. Despite its amorous appearance, this emoji can be either platonic or romantic. Corporations often use it in more informal settings, like social media captions.
🔥 Fire The fire or flame emoji is used to denote when something is “on fire” or lit. Colloquially, this expresses agreement, celebration or excitement.
🤌 Finger purse The finger purse or pinched fingers emoji is used to express the Italian hand gesture of the same kind and was (in part) created by Adriano Farano, an Italian media entrepreneur. In Italy, it expresses disagreement, frustration, or disbelief and often means “What do you want?” or “What are you saying?”

But here’s where it gets interesting. Emojis can be used anywhere in the world, and so the 🤌 meaning changes depending on which localized setting you’re using it in. This little guy means something different in Israel, India, Nigeria, and beyond.
☺️ The WhatsApp smiley meaning is simply to express positive acknowledgment. This emoji’s meaning is fairly broad, you can’t go wrong using it in most settings, so long as they’re positive or neutral.

List of WhatsApp emojis in combinations and their meanings

Emoji combination WhatsApp emoji meaning
🥺 👉 👈 Shy. This emoji combination should be used when you’re feeling a little bashful. It can be sent with an emotionally risky text.
🏃‍♀️💨 Gotta go or on my way! This emoji combination basically means you’re going somewhere fast.
🤔🤚 This combination means “hold up” or “wait a minute.” You can use it when you’ve been sent a confusing, shocking or strange message.
😎🤏😳🕶🤏 What did I just see? Use this combination when you’ve been sent something shocking, disturbing, or surprising.
☝️🤓 On it! When you’re asked to do something, especially something that requires mental work, use this combination to say you’ve got it.
👁👄👁 It is what it is. This emoji combination is used to show a blank stare or the common thought-terminating cliché, it is what it is.
🍆 💦 👄 or 🍑 👅💦 These emoji combos are NSFW. So, if you’re running a business, it’s best to avoid these.

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Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Jan 23 2024
10 Best LinkedIn Marketing Tools for Faster Growth

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While many social networks saw business use decline in 2023, LinkedIn saw 5% business use growth. (Second only to the 16% business use growth of TikTok.)

Hootsuite’s Social Trends Report finds that change in usage is driven by a renewed focus on ROI. LinkedIn is the platform of choice for many businesses looking to make deals and recruit top talent. Especially those focused on B2B sales.

LinkedIn marketing tools make it easier to build an effective brand presence on the platform. They also help you understand the results of your efforts. That’s important for tracing everything back to that critical ROI.

Let’s take a look at how to incorporate LinkedIn marketing tools into your social strategy.


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What’s the purpose of LinkedIn marketing tools?

Before we dive into our list, let’s talk about why you might want to use LinkedIn marketing tools in the first place.

Scheduling content

Scheduling content on LinkedIn allows you to focus your energy on creating quality posts, articles, and job listings. This is a better use of your skills than the manual labor of creating posts on the fly.

Creating your content in batches allows you to:

  • Star focused on the themes central to your marketing strategy and goals,
  • streamline campaigns, and
  • get feedback on post drafts from team members and stakeholders.

When you choose a LinkedIn scheduling tool that also allows you to schedule content for other platforms, the benefits increase exponentially.

Hootsuite Planner calendar scheduled social posts

With a unified view, you can develop synergies throughout your content plan. This saves time switching between tabs. It also lets you check that you’re spacing your content appropriately for connections who follow you in more than one place.

Automated messaging

This is an area where you have to be careful, as most automated messaging tools are prohibited on LinkedIn. That’s because LinkedIn wants to encourage real connections between real people and companies. If you use blackhat strategies to game the system, you risk having your account restricted or even shut down. (Just don’t use them at all — that’s our strong recommendation.)

However, there are some legit tools you can use to automate messaging tasks on LinkedIn, completely risk-free. These are primarily tools that help you and your team manage, respond to, and streamline incoming messages. For example, tools that route incoming messages to the most appropriate person on your team, or that allow you to save templated responses to common inquiries.

To get into the finer details, check out our post on LinkedIn automation tools.

Performance insights

Measuring your performance on LinkedIn is critical to making that performance better. Improving your LinkedIn strategy involves studying both your best and your worst content. Learning from past performance shows what you should do more of, and which strategies you should leave behind.

LinkedIn brand awareness page impressions and reach

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Again, it’s helpful to analyze your results in the full context of your overall social strategy. Sure, LinkedIn will likely always be your prime social platform for recruiting — but it is also a valuable social marketing platform. Understanding how LinkedIn results compare to those on other platforms helps you understand how best to allocate your limited social marketing resources.

Generating more leads

As any good salesperson knows, you always need more leads to fill your funnel. And LinkedIn is the top platform for B2B marketers worldwide. So any tools that can connect you with more leads on LinkedIn and help your social selling efforts are worth your attention.

LinkedIn lead generation tools help ramp up your marketing efforts by ensuring you reach the right people (e.g. decision makers who can purchase your product or service) at the right time. This is the best way to maximize ROI over the long run.

Audience and competitor research

The best LinkedIn marketing tools help you improve your content marketing strategy. Detailed audience and competitor research are key here.

Odds are, your content is not going to go viral on LinkedIn. The LinkedIn algorithm is actually designed to stop content from going viral. That’s because LinkedIn is focused on connecting users with professional advice and expertise that is specifically relevant to them.

Put another way, the LinkedIn algorithm is designed to show people the content they are most likely to engage with. This differs from passive content consumption. That means early engagement signals are even more important on LinkedIn than on other social platforms.

The catch is that LinkedIn mainly values thoughtful comments from relevant people. These are worth far more than likes, shares, or ultra-brief comments. Audience and competitor research is the best way to understand what your target audience wants, and to learn what’s working best for others in your niche.

All of this can help to extend reach and engagement, which then reinforce each other in a virtuous circle.

10 best LinkedIn marketing tools for 2024

1. Hootsuite

We’re listing Hootsuite as a single LinkedIn marketing tool here. But in reality it’s a suite of social media management tools that help to enhance your entire LinkedIn marketing strategy. It can help with all the elements listed above — and a few more.

Hootsuite may be best known for its scheduling capabilities. And those are certainly helpful for saving time when sharing content on LinkedIn – either in isolation or as part of a larger social campaign. But perhaps the most useful feature of the Hootsuite scheduler for LinkedIn is its built-in recommendations for the best times to post based on your content goals.

Hootsuite graph best times and days to publish on LinkedIn

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In terms of messaging, Hootsuite Inbox helps you stay on top of both public and private LinkedIn messages by corralling everything in one social inbox. You can use automated filtering to assign messages to the right team members. This shows both followers and the algorithm that you’re active and engaged.


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Audience and competitor research is another area where Hootsuite really shines. Using Hootsuite Analytics, you can build an audience profile with interests and behaviors from across your social profiles. Then use the built-in benchmarking tools to gain insights about your industry as a whole, or even specific competitors.

Map your findings back to your own specialist areas of knowledge to create LinkedIn marketing content and develop a brand voice that speaks directly to your most valuable followers. When organic content performs well, boost your best posts with just a couple of clicks. Take it all a step further by using Hootsuite’s built-in AI hashtag generator to find the growth-oriented hashtags that are most likely to maximize your LInkedIn audience.

new post on Hootsuite AI hashtag suggestions OwlyWriter

Or, use OwlyWriter AI to generate automatic captions when you share curated content on LinkedIn. Show both humans and robots that you are adding value and perspective to everything you post.

Finally, track your results and refine your strategy in real time with custom reports that come automatically to your inbox, or create easy-to-read reporting presentations for multiple stakeholder groups with a few clicks.

Pro tip: LinkedIn is one of the best social media platforms on which to make use of an employee advocacy strategy. Hootsuite Amplify has you covered there.

2. Native LinkedIn marketing tools

LinkedIn Sales Navigator home page with profile and highlights

Source: LinkedIn

Several paid and free LinkedIn marketing tools are built right into the social network itself. Some of the most important native LinkedIn tools for marketing are:

  • LinkedIn’s native scheduler: Post up to 90 days in advance using your laptop or Android device. For full details, check out our blog on how to schedule posts on LinkedIn.
  • LinkedIn native Page and Profile analytics: Track visitors, followers, competitors, and content effectiveness. Premium LInkedIn users get additional profile analytics data. Read more about LinkedIn analytics tools.
  • Sponsored Messaging: This paid solution can help you reach new contacts and bring in leads.
  • Sales Navigator: Another paid LinkedIn tool to help sales professionals save leads, get relevant alerts, and reach an extended network.

3. Crystal

Crystal CRM enrichment dashboard

Source: Crystal

Crystal is an AI-powered tool that uses publicly available data on your prospects to collect information about their personality. It then extrapolates insights that help you understand their communication style and purchase motivations, as well as how they make decisions.

On the marketing side, Crystal integrates with your CRM to pull personality data that leads to better campaign and message targeting on LinkedIn.

All of this allows your sales and marketing teams to build stronger connections using LinkedIn. Accessed through a Chrome extension, you can use this tool with public LinkedIn profiles as well as LinkedIn Recruiter and LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

4. Zopto

Zopto campaigns actions overview

Source: Zopto

Zopto allows you to import lists from your CRM to create targeted campaigns on LInkedIn. You can also use Zopto to build new, advanced prospect lists and filter them using a wide range of factors. It includes a LinkedIn scheduler.

Zopto uses a dedicated IP address, messaging scale-up, and randomization to simulate natural behavior. They say, “our platform works seamlessly with LinkedIn’s policies, ensuring your outreach is both effective and ethical!”

5. Canva

Canva LinkedIn templates design

Source: Canva

You might not think about design as much for your LinkedIn posts as you do for your content on other social platforms. But great-looking images are key to stopping the scroll on LinkedIn, too. Canva has a collection of free Linkedin post templates to make sure your posts start off on the right foot.

You can also design your LinkedIn company page or profile banner with Canva, helping you look more professional. (Looking professional is what LinkedIn is all about, after all.)

Great news for Hootsuite users: You can access Canva directly within Hootsuite to add some flair to your LinkedIn posts without switching tabs.

6. 6sense

6sense add filters with criteria

Source: 6sense

6sense is a great solution for those looking for LinkedIn B2B marketing tools They use potential buyers’ “digital breadcrumb trails” to uncover buying signals. This helps you better understand your audience so you can create targeted LinkedIn campaigns that speak directly to your prospects’ pain points and reach them at the right point in the purchasing cycle.

6sense integrates with LinkedIn, so there’s no need to worry about running afoul of the LinkedIn user agreement. It’s all about adding insights to your existing LinkedIn relationships and campaigns so you can target the right people at the right time.

7. B2Linked

B2Linked platform specific campaigns related to Information Technology

Source: B2Linked

B2Linked is a certified LinkedIn partner focused on helping businesses with LinkedIn ad campaigns. LinkedIn is all they do, so they have platform-specific expertise. They use micro-segmentation, advanced ad bidding, and A/B testing, among other strategies, to maximize ROI. Their LinkedIn ad reporting is also top-notch.

Their tools for LinkedIn marketing are only accessible through an account management package, so this is not a cheap option. (Packages start at $2,000/month.) But for those who want to really focus on LinkedIn marketing and advertising, it may be worth the investment.

8. Terminus

Terminus campaign overview graph with top engagement by type

Source: Terminus

Terminus is another certified LinkedIn marketing partner focused on LinkedIn ads. Their tools can help with account matching, targeting, and reporting for all LinkedIn ad types. Terminus connects to your CRM and can be used to coordinate multi-channel ad campaigns. (It’s not exclusive to LinkedIn.)

9. Sprout Social

Sprout Social all messages

Source: Sprout Social

Sprout Social is another tool that integrates with LinkedIn and does not raise user agreement concerns.

Sprout allows you to schedule LinkedIn content and analyze performance. There are useful targeting filters and collaboration tools, too.

See how Sprout Social compares to Hootsuite.

10. Dux-Soup

Dux-Soup funnel flow all campaigns graph

Source: Dux-Soup

Dux-Soup connects your CRM with LinkedIn so you can grow your LInkedIn network while centralizing prospect data and generating more leads.

It helps you find relevant LInkedIn profiles, send connection requests, and then follow up automatically with InMails and messages. Building your LinkedIn network creates new leads for your sales team. Pairing this with an employee advocacy strategy can help build an even larger network that maximizes your LinkedIn marketing collateral.

A warning, though: Dux-Soup’s LinkedIn marketing automation tools may conflict with the LinkedIn user agreement. Make sure you understand how it works and what you’re getting into.

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Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Jan 23 2024
15 Recent and Popular Social Media Memes

Whether you’re “extremely online” or just a weekend Instagram warrior, you’ve definitely encountered a meme at some point in your social media life. A sad dog with a hilarious caption; a panel from Spiderman with some perfectly stupid new labels; an overlay of a dancing Bill Hader interrupting a TikTok video.

The more time you spend online, the more familiar you’ll get with popular or recurring social media memes. You might even start to see mash-ups of well-known memes (and that’s probably when you should put down your phone and go outside for a bit).

If you’ve never dabbled in the fine art of meme-ery, maybe now’s the time to consider it. Memes can really help fill your social media content calendar and are pretty much guaranteed to delight your audience. And with fresh memes going viral daily, you’ll never run out of inspiration.

Obviously, memes aren’t appropriate for every type of account. If you run a funeral home, for example, maybe this isn’t the blog post for you.

But for brands that want to come across as playful, personable, and authentic, read on for more meme intel and dozens of viral examples to get the creative juices flowing.

Bonus: Download our free, customizable social media calendar template to easily plan and schedule all your content in advance.

What is a meme on social media?

A social media meme is “a joke or comment made for sharing on social networks. It usually appears in the form of a graphic or GIF with text above the image or superimposed.”

Another way of looking at it: memes are visual or textual media (or, on TikTok or Reels, audio clips!) that have been manipulated by an internet user for the purpose of self-expression.

Often, memes are created from images, video, or audio that existed for another purpose. A screenshot from a movie, a clip from a news broadcast gone wrong, an image from a comic strip that’s used to express a reaction to a current event. Memes can also be text-based though, taking a phrase (like a great line in Succession or a mispronunciation by the Pope) and putting it into all sorts of new contexts.

Memes spread across social media networks, with users taking a format and putting their own spin on it. There are dozens of websites and apps out there that can help you generate your own meme in just a few seconds.

And memes are popular: memes are the second most common type of content for Millennial and Gen Z users to share. Some social media accounts are even exclusively devoted to sharing memes — either re-posting other people’s meme creations or producing their own riffs on popular memes.

They’re so easy to make (even if you aren’t a pro at creating social media visuals), and are basically joke machines: just take the existing template, and put a spin on it that will crack up your specific audience.

That being said, memes can also be used for not-so-funny purposes, too. As the BBC put it, “memes can have a serious side, according to researchers looking at modern forms of communication. They are a language in themselves, with a capacity to transcend cultures and construct collective identities between people. These sharable visual jokes can also be powerful tools for self-expression, connection, social influence, and even political subversion.”

What is meme short for?

“Meme” comes from the Greek word mimema, which means “imitated.” Pretty high-brow heritage for a bunch of goofy internet jokes, right?

British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term in 1976 as a way to describe replicating and mutating cultural ideas. In his work, cultural memes are parallel to biological genes, which also carry information and have the ability to evolve.

“Memes,” in Dawkins’ original definition, could be applied to ideas, skills, fashions, or phrases, and transmitted through communication and culture — conversations, TV broadcasts, emails, you get the gist. Religious or political ideas, for example, are considered memes in his work.

But internet culture has really claimed the word for user-made and distributed media. Today, if someone refers to a meme outside of an extreme academic context, you can be sure they’re talking about a LOLcat.

Viral memes on social media in 2023

While most memes have a pretty short life cycle, there are plenty of memes that have stood the test of time (we’re looking at you, Confused Math Woman). Maybe these 2023 all-star memes will turn out to offer lifelong laughs? Either way, if they spark some inspiration in you — to either share them or make ‘em your own — follow that instinct. Meme hard! Meme often!

Kevin James Smirking

This Getty Images photo of Kevin James sheepishly smiling with his hands in his pockets makes the perfect blank canvas for adding a sassy caption.

Kevin James smirking with hands in his pocket memeSource: Know Your Meme

“Girl Math”

A joke (told by women, for women) about justifying costs. If your audience primarily identifies as women, go on and have a laugh about how the “cost per wear” of an outfit makes a fashion splurge seem like a totally reasonable idea.

@fvhzm

#itsbasicallyfree but it’s also basically a secondary income 💁‍♀️ Let us know if you need us to #girlmath one of your purchases! 🤪

♬ original sound – FVHZM

Celebrity Relationships

During the writing of this story, we saw the rise and fall of Kylie Jenner and Timothee Chalamet, so we’re not getting too attached to the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce relationship. But the “it” couple of the moment provides a great opportunity for meme-able paparazzi photos. Young love brings plenty of dramatic facial expressions, it seems.

@parademag

If Taylor likes football we ALL like football 😤 #taylorswift #traviskelce #taylorswifttraviskelce #memes

♬ Red – (Taylor’s version)

…or hilarious contrasts, as in the case of Justin and Hailey Bieber.

Barbie vs. Oppenheimer

The launch date of two diametrically opposite movies provided a lot of fun for the internet. Obviously, the trend has died down now, but take it as inspiration anyways. What kind of hilariously contrasting pop culture moments are happening right now that you can pit against each other in a meme?
Oppenheimer Barbie movie release opposite style of houses next door

Crunchy Cat

Though this green screen effect cat (eating something very loud and unidentifiable) was first uploaded to TikTok in 2022, it really popped off in 2023 as a hilarious accent to pretty much any situation.

@_supersillygoose

nam nam nam 😋😋😋 #paris #bones #cat #crunchy #crunchitymunchity

♬ original sound – GOOSE

Animals. Always

When will funny animals ever go out of style for memes? Relabel this chill chicken, or any other animal, with your own context.

Our fave? These fuzzy besties:

Astrological Signs

No one can resist an astrology meme. It’s… in the stars.

Which Are You?

Encourage your followers to tag themselves (as you simultaneously totally roast them).

Dancing Bill Hader

This clip from an old SNL sketch just brings the feel-good vibes. Layer it on top of a big product announcement you’re feeling smug about, why dontcha?

Kardashian Pregnancy Announcement

Back in the summer, Kourtney Kardashian made a dramatic pregnancy announcement using a sign at a concert… which naturally turned into a blank canvas for meme creators around the world. Look for future celebrity milestones like this to transform into your own memes.

​

Renaissance Paintings

It’s instant comedy: contrast an image from a Renaissance painting with a modern problem, and you’ve struck gold.

Roman Empire

Though this social media meme started with creators asking the men in their lives just how often they think about the Roman Empire (spoiler: a lot?), it’s now a fun thing to post about what your Roman Empire is: the thing you can’t stop thinking about.

@livbaron

asking my dad how often he thinks about the Roman Empire #romanempire #romanempireboyfriend

♬ original sound – liv baron

Smurf Cat

Why is this photo-realistic Smurf Cat trending? We couldn’t say. But the people have spoken, repurposing this cutesy character in all sorts of contexts.

@aim.vsp

WE LIVE WE LOVE WE LIE🗣️🔥#catsmurf #smurfcat #thespectere #edit #vsp #youthshake #meme #fyp

♬ original sound – Crcl.𝖆𝖎𝖒

“Bad Idea, Right?”

Use this clip from Olivia Rodrigo’s latest single to underscore a hilarious mistake.

@ashleylamarca

“I want curly hair” – no you don’t💀

♬ bad idea right? – Olivia Rodrigo

This Guy Reading a Book

A vintage comic strip that features a blank canvas (the book) and a dramatic reaction (the face)? You really can’t go wrong.

A Scary Halloween House

This spooky Halloween house dominated the meme cycle in October 2023. There’s still time to add your own hilarious caption! We believe in you!

Text-based posts

There’s a wide world of people sharing screenshots of text content to visual apps: Tweets that really make people laugh tend to make their way to Instagram to be repurposed and captioned.

It’s good practice to credit where you find these. Savvy brands might punch up these sort of minimalist posts with a punch of color or by using a branded background, to help them blend in with the rest of your feed.

By their nature, memes are always evolving and changing. Your best bet for keeping up with what’s going on in the world of TikTok, Instagram, Twitter/X, and Facebook is to be active on those platforms.

Explore popular content, and watch for emerging trends and patterns first-hand by getting right up into the action. (Feeling overwhelmed by the endless content? Set up specific Streams in your Hootsuite dashboard to focus your attention on the memes that matter most to your company or industry.)

Save time managing your social media presence with Hootsuite. Publish and schedule posts, find relevant conversations, engage your audience, measure results, and more — all from one simple dashboard. Try it free today.

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Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Jan 18 2024
Social Media Marketing for Beginners: 10 Tips

Table of Contents

Your mind is ready. Your body is ready. It’s time to take your first steps into social media marketing. And we’re here to say that we couldn’t be more proud of you.

More than 4.95 billion people are social media users. Worldwide, social users spend almost two and a half hours on social platforms each day. No matter your industry—accounting, consulting, dog-food manufacturing, wig-weaving—this is a captive, active audience that your brand can’t afford to ignore. (Find more eye-popping stats about social media here!)

But whether you’re a budding entrepreneur or a seasoned pro stepping into the digital landscape for the first time, we know that starting a social media marketing strategy from scratch can feel intimidating. The good news? We’re here to help. Think of us as your digital marketing doulas, here to demystify the world of social media marketing and help kickstart your journey.

So read on for everything you need to get started with your brand-new social media game plan, and a list of our favorite resources to help you grow from social rookie to all-star.

Bonus: Get a free social media strategy template to quickly and easily plan your own strategy. Also use it to track results and present the plan to your boss, teammates, and clients.

Social media marketing for beginners: 10 tips

Understand your audience

Whatever kind of business you operate, you need to know your target audience inside and out to succeed. If you don’t know who you’re talking to, how can you ever say the right thing? So before you even sign up for that Instagram account, you’ve got to do some homework. Identify your target demographic in as much detail as you can, including their interests, behaviors, and preferences. You might even want to make an audience persona: a prototype of a typical follower.

Once you know that your marketing is intended for little old ladies in Michigan or tech bros in New Dehli, you’ll understand just what type of tone and topics will resonate best… setting you off on the right path to earning engagement and brand loyalty.

Learn how to identify your unique audience and niche here.

Define your social media goals

Not everyone is on social media for the same reason. Some brands use social to offer customer service; others are there to build brand awareness. Figuring out your own brand’s objectives will help guide your game plan.

Are you interested in driving traffic to your ecommerce site, building engagement, or fostering community? Knowing the why behind your social media presence will help keep your actions focused, and allow you to clearly measure success or struggles.

For instance, while we don’t know for sure what Lululemon is thinking behind the scenes, content like this 10K training tweet indicates that one of its goals is to be a source of fitness education and support for its audience.

Need a little guidance? Check out our guide to setting and exceeding social media goals here.

Choose the right platforms

Here’s a little-known fact about social media marketing: your brand doesn’t have to be on every platform. Each social media platform has its own unique personality, and not all are necessarily going to be a fit for your brand. (And if you’re considering just signing up for everything and cross-posting across all the platforms, we’ll just tell you right now: please don’t.)

A magazine targeting senior citizens, on the other hand, would be wasting its time posting on youth-oriented TikTok… while cool-girl makeup brand Glossier is right at home on the platform.

@glossier

Less is more except when ✨more is more✨ #glossier #insandouts #2024insandouts

♬ What Love Is – Zimmer90

Where does your target audience hang out online? What feels appropriate for your editorial voice? Be selective about the platforms you want to have a presence on and then give your all—it’s about quality, not quantity.

Create quality content

Okay, we know that’s easier said than done. But the truth is that content has to be interesting or visually compelling, or there’s no point. The whole goal of social media marketing is to capture your audience’s attention, so take the time to craft content that actually offers value.

But! “Quality” doesn’t mean that it needs to be shot with a professional camera, or cost thousands of dollars. In fact, in some cases, a more improvised feel can actually add it the appeal of a post. It’s about being thoughtful and authentic… like this playful Bailey Nelson video that riffs on the glasses-shopping experience. Low-budget, and lots of fun.

@baileynelsoneyewear

POV: the Rich Aussie mum takes you glasses shopping at #BaileyNelson 🤓 @finns.vlogs

♬ original sound – bailey nelson

Basically, no one wants to be constantly sold to. But sharing a how-to tutorial on using your best-selling products? Helpful! Giving followers a glimpse behind the scenes at your office? Humanizing. Think about what you would want to see, and let that guide your content strategy.

Aim to educate, entertain, or inspire, and keep the promotional posts to a minimum. Here’s a cheat sheet with 17 creative content ideas to get you started.

Plan ahead

There’s no easy answer for how often to post on social media—every platform has its own best practices. But one throughline, from X to Pinterest, is that consistency is key. Posting regularly ensures you’re appearing in followers’ timelines regularly. It gives your fans something to count on. It appeases the algorithms. It makes your brand seem fresh and timely. Win win win win.

It can seem daunting to keep up with that sort of pace, but if you plan ahead, it’s more than manageable. Pick a few “content pillars” and spend a day (every week, every month, whatever!) when you’re feeling creative doing a big brainstorm of posts that could fit into those key categories. Then plug those posts into your social media scheduling tool to make sure you’re getting them out into the world at a good pace.

Hootsuite Planner with calendar social content overview

Bookmark the best resources

Tragically, not every brand has the budget for a whole team of social media content creators, and content creation is often the work of one brave marketer or solopreneur. But with the right tools in your toolbelt, it doesn’t have to be a slog.

We’ve compiled resources for the best graphic design tools, the best free stock photo sites, the best stock video sites, the best video editing tools, and even the best new AI tools. Bookmark these lists and supercharge your content craftwork.

Study up on hashtags and SEO

If you’re making amazing content, but no one’s seeing it, it’s going to be hard to hit your social media goals (whatever they may be). To really achieve organic reach with your content, mastering the fine art of hashtagging is key. Research relevant hashtags, understand best practices (stick with 3-5 per caption!) and mix broad tags with niche ones for maximum reach. Here’s our post on how to use hashtags for every network if you want to learn more.

Similarly, it’s important to consider what keywords you’re including in your captions, titles, and alt tags. Social search is becoming more powerful every day. Read this post on social SEO to learn just how to level up your discoverability.

Practice social listening

Social listening may sound like an advanced practice, but social media marketers at any level can do it. At its core, social listening is the practice of monitoring social media channels for mentions of your brand or relevant keywords—a practice that offers valuable insights into how customers feel about your products or services, what their pain points are, and what they’d like to see from you in the future. There are plenty of social listening tools out there, but we (obviously) recommend Hootsuite. The listening streams are really easy to set up. Read about social listening here, or watch this video (dealer’s choice!).

Put yourself out there

Successful social media marketing involves more than just broadcasting messages: participation and interaction are key to building connection and community. So don’t just schedule time for posting into your day; schedule time for actively engaging with your audience in the comment section or elsewhere on the site. Encourage conversations, ask questions, and participate in the community. Run polls, answer DMs, host Q&As, and do whatever else you can to give as much as you take.

Hair accessory brand Supercrush created this post to ask its audience to vote on product colors and everyone wanted to chime in.

Dig into the analytics

Just as businesses analyze their performance metrics, social media marketers should be reviewing their data regularly, too. After all, how can you refine your strategies if you don’t know how things are actually going?

Remember the social media goals you set out way back at the beginning of your social media journey? Your social media analytics will reveal if your actions have paid off. Regularly check in on the metrics that are meaningful to you (reach, engagement, click-through rates, and so on)—looking back is what will help you move forward with confidence.

As you probably guessed, this is just scratching the surface of what’s possible with social media. We haven’t even touched on understanding the social media algorithm, creating social media guidelines, or advertising on social media. (Ooh, or employee advocacy!) (Or influencer collaborations!) (Or how to go live on social media!) (Someone please take our keyboard away.)

But here’s the thing: there’s always something more to learn about social. It’s a digital landscape that’s constantly evolving, so you’re never going to “finish” learning everything you need to know… which means you kind of just need to jump into the deep end and figure it out as you go.

Top resources to learn social media marketing

Embrace the idea of learning on the job and experimenting. There are lots of resources for advanced learning out there (see below), but real social media education starts with getting hands-on (mouse on?).

Hootsuite Blog

Not to toot our own horn, but the Hootsuite Blog is a valuable source for articles, guides, and insights related to social media marketing. We cover a wide range of topics, including social media trends, best practices, platform updates, and case studies… and even do fun experiments. (Hot tip: do not buy TikTok followers.) Stay tuned to deepen your understanding of effective strategy and gain practical skills to help you improve your social media game.

Hootsuite Academy

Want to take your social media learning even further? Hootsuite Academy is here to help you really nerd out. This is a self-guided, structured online learning program that features courses and certifications on various aspects of social media marketing. We cover topics like social media strategy, content marketing, social advertising, and platform-specific skills. Whether you’re a beginner or more experienced marketer, there’s something for everyone.

Hootsuite Labs

Go ahead and subscribe to Hootsuite Labs on YouTube right now (we’ll wait). It’s a channel brought to you by our own social media team. Each week, we’ll deliver a new video featuring experiments, hacks, strategies, or explainers to help you understand just how social media works… and, more importantly, how to be successful.

Google’s Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

Though it’s not focused solely on social media, Google’s Digital Garage offers a free course called “Fundamentals of Digital Marketing” that has lots of interesting info about online marketing and social. There are lots of practical exercises and real-world examples, so it’s a nice foundational resource.

Social Media Today

Social Media Today aggregates content from various contributors in the social media industry into one platform, so you’ll have all the hot news from the frontlines of social media marketing in one place. Think: articles, insights, trends related to social media marketing, platform updates and strategic advice.

Link in Bio Newsletter

Former social media manager for Bon Appetit, Rachel Karten, writes a weekly newsletter that is one of Hootsuite’s social media team’s top resources when it comes to news, trends, and brands to pay attention to. By her own description, Karten’s newsletter is “about working in social media, creating clever content, and making sure your boss never asks you to “go viral”. And we highly recommend it!

ICYMI

Here’s another newsletter we love. Lia Haberman has been referred to as the world’s foremost creator economy expert, but her weekly newsletter is about digital marketing more generally (with a strong focus on social media marketing). We read it to stay up-to-date with industry trends (and also for her pithy and wise insights). 

Save time managing your social media presence with Hootsuite. Publish and schedule posts, find relevant conversations, engage your audience, measure results, and more — all from one simple dashboard. Try it free today.

Do it better with Hootsuite, the all-in-one social media tool. Stay on top of things, grow, and beat the competition.

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Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Jan 18 2024
20 Ways To Get More Views on Instagram Reels (These Work!)

20 ways to get more views on Instagram Reels

Want to know how to get more views on Instagram Reels? Stick with us, kid. We’re giving out free social media advice that doesn’t involve black-hat techniques (we look better in white, tbh), get-rich-quick schemes (tried, failed), or snake oil (not good for the snakes).

We’re breaking down the best practices social media managers, creators, and Instagram pros use to get those reel view gains! Do what the experts do, and you’ll pump up your watch numbers au naturale.

This inclusive guide tells you exactly how to get more views on Instagram Reels using twenty tried-and-true methods.

Bonus: Download the free 10-Day Reels Challenge, a daily workbook of creative prompts that will help you get started with Instagram Reels, track your growth, and see results across your entire Instagram profile.

What counts as a view on Instagram Reels?

Before we dive into how to get more views on reels, you first need to know what counts as a view. Instagram has a couple of rules, which we’ve outlined below.

There are also a few black-hat baddies out there that will promote paid hacks on how to get your reels seen, but buyer, beware. It may not be worth it in the end.

The three-second rule

Despite many sources claiming Instagram reel view counts happen instantaneously (like TikTok), Instagram only counts views after three seconds. Your viewer can’t click away before the three-second mark, or else it didn’t happen. The takeaway from this is to make your first four seconds engaging. Give your viewer a reason to stick around.

Replays: What are they worth?

Instagram only counts the first few views per user. So, you can’t use your friend’s account to watch your reel a hundred times over to bump up your views.

Watching your own reels

You might be thinking of ways to hack the system, like racking up your own views by replaying your reels. Unfortunately, Instagram doesn’t make it that easy. Viewing your own reels won’t register as a view.

Is buying views worth it?

Paying your way to social media stardom doesn’t often net the results you want. Believe us, we’ve tested it by buying Instagram followers.

So, while buying views may seem worth it, there’s usually a catch. Often, these views are provided by bots that can’t engage with your content otherwise. These black hat techniques can put your account at risk of being banned. They also skew your data, so you can’t use it for any actual insights into your content.

If you’re trying to build an audience or monetize your content, buying them isn’t the answer to how to get views on reels.

20 ways to get more views on Instagram Reels

1. Make your first few seconds count

As we mentioned above, you need a minimum of three seconds of attention for the view to count.

There are a few tricks you can take to make sure people stick around for that magical four-second mark. Start in media res by jumping right into the meat of the video; people don’t want a long lead-up to the good stuff.

You can also promise your viewers a surprise or a treat of some kind at the end of the video to keep them interested. On a totally unrelated note: if you read to the end of this blog, you’ll get a recommendation for a hashtag AI tool that can predict the tags your audience will respond to!

2. Don’t hide your content in your Reels tab

Once you share your video, it will automatically be stored in a separate Reels tab on your profile.

If you want it to appear on your main profile grid (and trust us, you do), you also have to share it to your Feed. This is one of the easier answers to how to get more views on reels—just toggle a button.

Doing this increases the visibility on your reel. You can choose a custom thumbnail for your video so it doesn’t mess up your grid aesthetic. The reel will show up like a normal post, with a reel icon in the top right corner. Hootsuite Instagram Reels shared on feed

3. Do keyword research

Keyword research isn’t just for websites and blogs anymore. Your social media algorithms use a similar set of rules to Google’s search algorithms, as every digital platform has the same goal: To keep the user using the platform.

It stands to reason that you can use SEO to better your reach on social, and that starts with keyword research on your social platform. Keyword research can also help to inform your content. If you’re stuck on what kind of reel to make, take a look at what your audience is searching for and the search terms Instagram suggests.

Take a look at the experiment we did on how traditional SEO tactics impact social media success. You can straight-up copy the TikTok methodology we used, which is step 2 in the how-to guide, and use it on Instagram.

4. Be specific with your captions

Pay attention to keyword placement by top-loading your sentence with your target keywords. Also, don’t stuff your captions with keywords. Social caption writing should follow the same rules as long-form SEO and be written for a human audience, not a machine’s algorithm.

You can find a few other easy ways to tackle social SEO here.

5. Use keywords in your script

By the way, social media algorithms aren’t just crawling written text. It’s likely Instagram takes into account your audio, too, when pulling keywords. YouTube certainly does.

Make sure you’re frontloading your script with your target keywords, then peppering them throughout your reel for maximum results.

Of course, all of this SEO-algorithm-talk helps if you understand the Instagram reels algorithm.

6. Use keywords in your on-screen text, too

Much like crawling your audio for keywords, Instagram’s algorithm is going to look at the text written on your reels, too.

We do need an algorithm disclaimer, too. While we can’t be 100% certain about how the Instagram algorithm works, we know it doesn’t hurt to optimize your reels.

7. If you use text, make sure it’s easily read

It can be tempting to throw up some wildly flashy words on your video to grab attention. But if it isn’t easy to read your text, your viewer is going to click away. You never want to make someone work through a confusing visual or complex narrative.

You want to make it as easy as possible for people to get what you’re doing. So, follow accessibility standards for text on the screen, make it left-aligned or center-aligned, and keep it short.

8. Use subtitles

You can increase your reel’s reach by making it accessible to all users, including those hard of hearing, Deaf, or watching your video with the sound off. Instagram has made it simple to add subtitles to any video with a sticker.

9. Write alt text

Speaking of accessibility, adding alt text to your reel will make it enjoyable for users who are visually impaired. And alt text has the added bonus of giving you another area to integrate your keywords.

10. Use trending audio

Trending audio is a surefire way to get your videos on more people’s screens. Using popular tracks signifies to Instagram’s algorithm that other people who also like that audio will like your video, too. Then, the platform serves your video to those people.

Bonus points if you can make funny, seemingly unrelated audio make sense with your brand. Looking at you, Trish!

11. Create content with your audience in mind

Yes, creating for your audience is one of the universal best practices for increasing social engagement, but it has to be said over, and over, and over again because it’s that important.

Don’t mix narratives on your branded channels. If you create content that exclusively features horses being clowns, don’t switch to content about what you’re making for dinner. Give the people what they want: Ridiculous horse content!

The reason for this is that people like predictability. When they followed you, there was a silent agreement. The audience agrees to follow you so long as you keep creating the content they initially signed up for.

The moment you change tracks, you’ll start losing views. Unless it’s an incredibly compelling or entertaining video. There are exceptions to every rule, of course.

Now, this doesn’t mean you need to create the same video repeatedly. You can also do brand-adjacent content, like horse ASMR (to jump on trends) or content closely related to what your audience is already liking, like other funny farm animals.

12. Engage with like-content

Engage with other brands within your niche by leaving thoughtful or funny comments on their content. You could attract their audience to your channel. And, if Instagram sees your account as active and interactive, it may show you off more in your target audience’s feed.

13. Embed reels on your website or blog

Your website, including your blog, is another potential touch point for reel views. By embedding your content in your site, you’ll present your reels to a potentially new audience.

Plus, embedding your content looks very polished, you social media pro, you. Check it out:

14. Experiment with length

While longer videos give you more room for storytelling, shorter videos may hold your audience’s attention spans. It’s best to experiment with video length to see what your audience enjoys.

Analyze your data with a solid amount of both long and short videos to see what duration is the most popular. Be sure to keep testing over time.

15. Post when your followers are online

Obviously, you want to post reels when your audience is already online so they interact with your post right away. You don’t have to depend solely on Instagram analytics to see when the best time is. Hootsuite’s best-time-to-post feature pulls your data for you and suggests an optimal posting schedule.

Hootsuite Best times and days to publish

Source: Hootsuite

16. Experiment with boosting

Organic posts can truly only take you so far. You’re going to want to boost your popular reels for maximum exposure. And FYI, boosting reels that are already doing well is a better use of your budget than trying to force poor-performing reels onto your audience.

17. Share reels to your Story

You want to have your reel plastered on as many surfaces as possible. When you publish a reel, share it on your Story, too. This way, your reach will be as far and wide as possible.

18. Run a contest or giveaway

Contests or giveaways are a tried-and-tested method of gaining video views. Offering people some sort of prize for a low-barrier entrance fee, like following your account and tagging a buddy, can net you high reel views.

19. Use your data to inform your content

Taking a deep dive into your Instagram Reels analytics can help inform your reel content strategy. And it will give you valuable insight into your overall social media performance.

Take a look at your most-viewed reels. What did you do for those that you can repeat? Do all of your top-viewed videos follow a pattern? Or maybe they’re all on the same trend or subject? Try to emulate the content Instagram Insights says is working.

On the flip side, take a look at the content that flopped. What happened here? What do people definitely not want more of? Failed reels have value, too. And if you’re really embarrassed about the poor performance, here’s how to hide views on reels on Instagram.

20. Don’t forget about hashtags

Hashtags are one common best practice for how to get more views on Instagram Reels. But simply throwing a bunch of #randomwords out there won’t do you any good. Instead, you can use SEO tactics and your keyword research to strategically inform your hashtags. Or, you can Hootsuite’s automatic hashtag generator to do the work for you.

Hootsuite automatic hashtag generator on new post

AI generated hashtag suggestions #recordshopping #supportlocal #newarrivals

Source: Hootsuite

Start building your Instagram presence using Hootsuite. Schedule and publish posts directly to Instagram, engage your audience, measure performance, and run all your other social media profiles — all from one simple dashboard. Try it free today.

Get Started

Save time and stress less with easy Reels scheduling and performance monitoring from Hootsuite. Trust us, it’s reely easy.

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Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Jan 18 2024
What Is an Everything App? Complete Guide to Super Apps

Table of Contents

An everything app is the everything bagel of the app world. It’s got a little bit of everything you need to run you day-to-day life, all wrapped up in a single (delicious?) package. These apps include tons of popular features and are essential in the daily lives of millions of users worldwide.

While they may not have taken off in North America yet, apps like WeChat, Line, and KakaoTalk have millions (or even billions) of users across Asia who rely on them for everything from groceries to stock portfolio management.

So what is an everything app exactly, and how can your business use these apps to your advantage? Let’s get into it.

Bonus: Read the step-by-step social media strategy guide with pro tips on how to grow your social media presence.

What is an everything app?

An everything app (also sometimes known as a “super app“) is a mobile app that handles a broad range of digital needs, including messaging, social networking, ecommerce, delivery services, and even financial services like online banking. It’s essentially a one-stop shop in app form.

Everything apps are very popular across Asia. WeChat, a platform popular in China, had 1.3 billion monthly active users as of June 2023. People use this super app for text and voice messaging, video calls, gaming, mobile payments, and more.

In 2022, Line reported 89 million monthly active users, approximately 70％ of Japan’s population. Line sees slightly more female users than WeChat (55% compared to WeChat’s 47.7%).

LINE User Demographics gender and age distribution

Source: Line Business Guide 2022

WeChat overview global active users distribution

Source: Hootsuite 2022 Digital Trends Report

How does an everything or super app work?

Imagine logging in to a single app to make dinner plans with a friend, check the weather forecast, book a cab ride to and from the restaurant, and send your friend money for your share of the dinner bill after the fact.

An everything app gathers multiple services in one place so users can access everything they need to manage their life in a single app.

After a user logs into a super app, the app’s dashboard will present several options. In WeChat, for example, these include:

  • Instant messaging in multiple formats (text, voice, video calls)
  • Moments, a social feed where users can post images, text, and short videos
  • News, a curated newsfeed that allows users to subscribe to different outlets
  • Travel Service, a ride-sharing mini-program within the app
  • Pay, which more than 250 million WeChat users rely on to pay for everything from groceries to utility bills

WeChat can be used in different modes, such as Easy (designed for easier readability, with larger fonts and bigger buttons) or Guardian (intended to protect users under 14 years old by removing some features).

What are everything apps used for?

Messaging

Super apps such as WeChat, KakaoTalk, and Line all started as messaging apps. While they’ve all grown to include various other features, messaging is at the heart of these super apps.

WeChat, which is used by over one billion users in China, allows users to send and receive messages and other media, make voice calls, and video chat. 78% of 16 to 64-year-olds in the country rely on WeChat to stay connected with their friends and family.

WeChat home screen popular messaging app in China

Source: Hootsuite

In South Korea, KakaoTalk is the leading messaging app, with 47.8 million monthly active users at the end of 2022. 97.5% of South Koreans rely on KakaoTalk for messaging, with Instagram a distant second at 29.5%.

KakaoTalk South Korea lead messaging app

Source: KakaoTalk

The Line Messaging app launched in Japan in 2011 after a devastating earthquake and tsunami. The goal was to create a reliable means of communication during emergencies. Fast-forward a few years, and Line has grown into a super app with over 86 million monthly active users in Japan.

Line messaging app conversation example food meet up

Source: Line

Payments and banking

Another major function of super apps is banking and online payments. These apps use a digital wallet system to make day-to-day transactions easy.

Line Pay “blur[s] the line between online and offline” with their mobile wallet system, which can be used for in-app and in-person payments. Users sign up with a credit card, so these accounts don’t require banking details.

WeChat Pay can either be used with a credit card or linked to a user’s bank account. There’s even a Red Packets feature that allows users to send digital cash gifts for special occasions or holidays, such as Lunar New Year.

WeChat Pay Lucky Money Happy New Year digital cash gift

Source: WeChat

KakaoTalk’s payment app, Kakao Pay, allows users to send money transfers and pay bills. South Korean residents can also sign up for Kakao Bank to manage investments, request loans, and purchase insurance.

Social media and microblogging

What would an everything app be without a social media component? WeChat Moments, Line Timeline, and KakaoTalk all include various timeline features that allow users to post photos, videos, text updates, and more.

Depending on the app, this feature might be reminiscent of popular social media apps like Facebook or TikTok.

WeChat Moments post eating delicious Thai food at Bangkok Thai restaurant

Source: WeChat Blog

Line Timeline user profile with services and customized stickers

Source: Hootsuite

News

Super app users turn to WeChat, KakaoTalk, Line, and others to stay in the know. These platforms have a high degree of control over what users see, especially in countries where other news outlets are unavailable due to existing Internet censorship policies.

Shopping

Everything apps integrate their shopping and payments services to make it easy for users to make purchases directly in the app. This way, users can buy anything from groceries to luxury bags.KakaoTalk shopping feature groceries and luxury items

Source: KakaoTalk

Travel

Most super apps include car or taxi booking services, like Line Taxi or Kakao T.

Grab, a popular everything app in Singapore, started out as a ride-hailing app and has since grown to include food delivery, e-commerce, and more.

Grab map feature places and navigation

Source: Grab

How to use an everything app for business

Connect with customers

Everything apps offer a direct line of communication with your customers. You can use these apps for sales and customer support. According to Line, people are highly likely to interact with the business accounts that they follow.

popular actions taken after friending business account include reading message sent by business

Source: Line Business Guide

Don’t speak the language? No problem! Apps like WeChat, Line, and KakaoTalk can be used in other languages, such as English.

If you’re a Hootsuite enterprise customer, you can manage WeChat messages through Sparkcentral and Line messages through Streamchat.

Offer a membership or loyalty program

Incentivize users to follow your everything app account by offering coupons, promotions, or a loyalty program where users can accumulate points and access rewards.

Take advantage of ads

Super apps have access to an incredible amount of data about their users. Advertisers can target audiences by interest, age range, gender, region, and even operating system (OS).

Ready to start using everything apps for your business? Check out the Hootsuite blog for our guides to using WeChat, Line, and KakaoTalk for business.

FAQs about everything apps

What are super apps used for?

Super apps are used for a range of digital needs, including messaging, social networking, ecommerce, delivery services, and even online banking.

Are there any super apps in the USA?

There are no super apps or everything apps in the USA at the moment. Big players like Meta and X have expressed interest in creating a WeChat-like super app but have yet to launch a super app product in North America.

Why are there no super apps in the west?

There are no super apps in the west right now. There are a few reasons for this: concerns about slow app-loading times, indications that American customers are not interested in a mobile wallet app ecosystem, and challenges with antitrust and anticompetition laws, especially in the US.

Save time managing your social media presence with Hootsuite. Publish and schedule posts, find relevant conversations, engage your audience, measure results, and more — all from one simple dashboard. Try it free today.

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Do it better with Hootsuite, the all-in-one social media tool. Stay on top of things, grow, and beat the competition.

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Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Jan 10 2024
AI Marketing Tools To Help You Win in 2024

Top AI marketing tools by category

Forgive us for using a technical term, but it’s absolutely bananas how far AI has come in the past year. And while some people are worried that the robots are here to take our jobs, we’re convinced they’re here to help us do our jobs better—especially when it comes to AI marketing tools.

If you are a small team or solopreneur wanting to scale your reach and analytics capability, AI marketing tools can be a game-changer. With the right software, companies with minimal resources can compete with the big boys.

AI marketing software can help draft content, generate SEO-friendly social captions, repurpose a blog post into a video, suggest an ad strategy, and so much more. Seriously, just imagine what your marketing team could accomplish with a little (digital) helping hand.

Ready to step up your social media marketing with a little help from artificial intelligence? Read on for our master list of the best AI marketing tools for 2024.

Bonus: Download this free cheat sheet with 250 professionally engineered ChatGPT prompts that will help you be more productive at work and in your daily life. We’ve included specific prompts for over 25 industries and professions!

25 best AI marketing tools for 2024

A quick caveat before we dive into our list of the best AI marketing tools for 2024: the “best” software for you is going to be totally dependent on your social media goals.

So before you lean into the world of automation and adopt every tool here, take a minute to think about what parts of your current process could use scaling or streamlining.

AI marketing tools for social media

1. Hootsuite

Managing social media = 25 jobs. Creating content, posting to multiple networks, learning about your audience, providing customer support, reporting wins to your boss… It’s a lot.

Hootsuite's Compose screen with the auto publish feature highlighted

Hootsuite can help you do all of that (and more) from one user-friendly dashboard that works with Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, and YouTube.

With Hootsuite, you get:

  • An easy-to-use social media scheduler
  • Personalized recommendations for best times to post
  • Intuitive analytics for all your social accounts
  • One inbox for DMs and comments from every network
  • Industry benchmarks and competitor analytics
  • Simple social media monitoring tools
  • Integrations with all of your other tools, including Canva, Hubspot, Shopify, Mailchimp, Microsoft Dynamics, and 200+ more

But hey, this is a story about AI marketing tools… and Hootsuite absolutely delivers there, too.

OwlyWriter is built on ChatGPT’s pioneering language model, but it also includes all of our winning content formulas that took over 14 years of research to develop.


Craft perfect posts in seconds

OwlyWriter AI instantly generates captions and content ideas for every social media network. It’s seriously easy.

Start free 30-day trial

OwlyWriter can:

  • Write a new social media caption in a specific tone of voice
  • Write a post based on a link (e.g., a blog post or a product page)
  • Generate post ideas based on a keyword or topic (and then write posts expanding on the idea you like best)
  • Identify and repurpose your top-performing posts
  • Create relevant captions for upcoming holidays
OwlyWriter AI (an AI marketing tool) generating Instagram captions

Try OwlyWriter AI for free

If you’re fine with writing your own captions but need a little help generating relevant hashtags, Hootsuite’s AI hashtag suggestion tool is a game-changer.

We all know hashtags are kind of a secret weapon when it comes to expanding your reach, but coming up with the right hashtags on your own can be…tricky.

Hootsuite’s AI suggestion tool is built right into the Compose window, so it’s super easy to generate smart hashtags while you write and schedule your content. Our AI technology analyzes both your caption and the images you’ve uploaded to suggest the most relevant hashtags.

And if you’re handling customer service via social media, Hootsuite Inbox also features some powerful AI capabilities. With Hootsuite Inbox, you can bridge the gap between social media engagement and customer service — and manage all of your social media messages in one place.

Beyond collecting all your DMs into a handy package, Inbox also features:

  • Automated message routing
  • Auto-responses and saved replies
  • Automatically triggered customer satisfaction surveys
  • AI-powered chatbot features
Hootsuite Inbox is an AI marketing tool that auto-sorts and tags incoming messages

Take Hootsuite Inbox for a test drive

Price: Starts at $99 for professional plans
Who it’s best for: Social media managers, digital marketing professionals, small to large businesses, content creators


Reduce response time (and your workload)

Manage all your messages stress-free with easy routing, saved replies, and friendly chatbots. Try Hootsuite’s Inbox today.

Book a Demo

2. Hootsuite’s free AI tools

Subscription plans gettin’ you down? Not to fear, Hootsuite has free AI content creation tools you can use right now:

  • Caption generator. Curious about OwlyWriter AI or other AI writing tools? Try out caption generation for free. This generator isn’t as advanced as OwlyWriter. Still, unlike ChatGPT, it’s optimized for social media and custom-creates your caption for your chosen platform in one of five languages. Nice.
  • Username idea generator. Identity crisis? No problem! With Hootsuite’s username generator, you can reinvent yourself in a few seconds flat.
  • About/bio writer. We get it—it can feel awkward to write about yourself. Let Hootsuite sum up the special sauce of your life automatically.
  • AI hashtag generator. Not sure how to tag your latest Insta post for maximum exposure? Our hashtag tool is here to help. (And if you want suggestions based on an image or video? Sign up for Hootsuite for the full multimedia experience!)

Price: Free!

Who it’s best for: Content creators, small teams, businesses just beginning their social media journeys

AI tools for content marketing

3. ChatGPT

Does ChatGPT even need an introduction? It’s become the default name for “AI content creation.”

A natural language processing (NLP) chatbot, ChatGPT can comprehend and generate material that sounds like a real person wrote it, including blog posts, social media postings and more.

ChatGPT is one of the most popular AI marketing tools currently available

Price: Free! The “ChatGPT+” subscription costs $20 a month and offers faster response times and early access to new features

Who it’s best for: Developers, businesses with AI integration needs, content creators, customer support teams

4. Dall-E by Open.ai

Dall-E is the visual sibling of ChatGPT, an AI-powered solution for graphic design. Provide a text prompt detailing your visual concept, and Dall-E brings it to life.

Dall-E is great for crafting original graphics for blog posts or social media, prototyping designs, or developing web graphics.

It’s not the best for creating brand elements like logos or packaging designs, though. Brand identity, after all, calls for more than just aesthetics.

Dall-E can generate simple images from a text prompt.

Price: Dall-e charges by the image, with the pricing ranging between $0.016 an image to $0.040 depending on the scale and resolution.

Who it’s best for: Graphic designers, artists, creatives, marketing professionals

5. Copy.ai

Copy.ai streamlines the copywriting process by generating almost-ready-to-publish drafts requiring minimal human editing.

Just provide a topic and creative direction; you’ll get outlines, articles, social posts, and sales emails in a few seconds. Try this AI marketing tool out if you need to generate written content rapidly at scale.

CopyAI allows you to specify your brand voice to customize the copy you generate.

Price: The basic plan is free, with pro plans starting at $36 a month

Who it’s best for: Content writers, copywriters, marketers, small business owners

6. JasperAI

A major ChatGPT competitor, JasperAI’s specialty is its ability to account for tone. That makes it a great tool for generating on-brand articles, social media posts, and scripts that consistently reflect your voice.

JasperAI is another copy AI marketing tool

JasperAI also facilitates content translation into 30 languages and integrates with tons of different applications.

Try using JasperAI to generate content ideas and outlines or translate content for global audiences. (That being said, leave the big stories to human professionals.)

Price: From $39 a month

Who it’s best for: Individual content creators, collaborative marketing teams

7. Canva

Creating a brand from scratch? Work with a graphic design professional. Looking to repurpose existing content and maintain visual consistency using a library of graphic templates? Canva is a great tool to keep in your toolbox.

Canva isn’t just for social graphics; it covers document design, presentations, and more.

Plus, with the introduction of Magic Design, Canva utilizes AI-powered content creation to generate matching templates based on uploaded media, making it efficient to repurpose content across various platforms.

Price: A basic account is free, but to access premium content and new tools (like Magic Design), prices start at $18.99 a month

Who it’s best for: Designers, small business owners, social media managers, students

8. Midjourney

Similar to Dall-E, Midjourney creates graphics using AI prompts. It operates as a Discord bot, which means it’s very user-friendly, and you can enable art creation from anywhere—even your phone.

Midjourney is a more advanced AI marketing tool than Dall-E

While anyone can learn to create prompts in Midjourney, getting the results you want takes a bit of practice—check out our AI art prompting guide.

Advanced Midjourney options include specifying features like a transparent background, aspect ratio, and art style.

Price: From $10 a month

Who it’s best for: Advanced AI image users, graphic designers

9. Synthesia

Synthesia enhances video production, even if you’re the most camera-shy marketing person on the planet. It uses AI avatars to quickly transform video scripts into finished videos.

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Murf is an AI marketing tool that generates realistic human voices for voiceover

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Looking into video or audio podcasts? Podcastle might be for you. This AI-powered podcast recording and editing app allows you to record video and audio streams, including virtual interviews with up to 10 participants.

Podcastle uses AI-powered editing to automate simple tasks

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Quillbot is an AI marketing tool that allows you to rephrase existing content

Price: Some functions available for free, but to access all the tools, plans start at $8.33 a month

Who it’s best for: Social media managers looking to repurpose existing content

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Wanna level up your product pics? Magic Studio is your new go-to. This AI tool caters to brands aiming to elevate their visual presence.

Magic Studio is an AI-powered tool that allows you to rapidly generate product images, etc

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DeepBrain AI Studios offers a user-friendly platform for AI video creation, converting text to video seamlessly. (It’s honestly a little spooky.)

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DeepBrain AI can generate video and audio from text

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15. Acrolinx

Acrolinx goes beyond just churning out content for blog posts. It serves as a brand watchdog, ensuring content aligns with brand guidelines. Set your style, tone, grammar, and specific language, and Acrolinx will help you generate content that never deviates from the brand vision.

Its AI Video Generator converts text to video, and photo-realistic AI avatars can be tailored to suit your brand.

Price: Price available upon request

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AI tools for SEO

16. Keyword Insights

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Surfer SEO is a tool designed to enhance the content quality of web pages, ensuring higher rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Surfer SEO is an AI marketing tool used by content marketers

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Who it’s best for: Agencies, brands ready to scale

18. GrowthBar

GrowthBar employs GPT-3 AI technology to automate content generation and offers suggestions for keywords, precise word count, links, images, and more.

GrowthBar employs GPT-3 AI marketing technology to automate content generation

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Who it’s best for: Content marketers, bloggers

19. Frase.io

Frase.io is a handy tool for creating SEO-optimized content efficiently.

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Who it’s best for: Editors, content strategists, SEO experts

AI tools for advertising

20. Albert.ai

Albert positions itself as your “self-learning digital marketing ally,” with features that help it process and analyze audience info and tactical data at scale.

Albert is adept at optimizing and generating budgets. But it’s also designed to help with strategy and structure, so you can get more reach for less.

Price: Contact for a customized pricing plan
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21. Skai

If you’re in marketing in 2024, chances are you’re delivering to a bunch of different outlets and platforms. Skai is all about optimizing for an omnichannel strategy.

Skai is an AI-powered analytics platform

The tool uses AI-powered tech to collect and classify unstructured data points to gather insights about your unique market. Skai’s Creative Intelligence AI will even review your ad creative to offer feedback and tactics.

Price: Price on request

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22. Wordstream

Wordstream is another AI-based program dedicated to elevating your advertising game. It uses machine learning (ML) to optimize ad campaigns across a variety of social media networks.

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Price: Price on request

Who it’s best for: Small businesses, agencies

AI tools for market research

23. Brandwatch

Brandwatch is notable for its extensive reservoir of customer intelligence, specifically designed for analyzing data at scale.

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Price: Available with Hootsuite’s Enterprise accounts (request a demo now!)

Who it’s best for: Digital strategists, brand managers

24. Brand 24

Brand24’s AI social media monitoring tool allows brands to stay on top of real-time feedback, both positive and negative.

It conducts a comprehensive analysis of conversations spanning the web regarding the brand, products, and competitors so you can be as informed as humanly possible about the state of your reputation.

Brand24 is an AI marketing tool that helps with reputation management

Beyond reputation management, Brand24 helps you assess ongoing marketing campaigns and resolve emerging issues before they escalate.

Price: From $99 a month
Who it’s best for: Brand managers, social media managers

25. Optimove

Optimove is a comprehensive customer data platform offering a unified view of customer behavior and insights.

Optimove features include campaign performance evaluation, hyper-segmentation, A/B testing, and multi-channel tracking. The tool can provide valuable insights, aiding in decisions about campaign optimization and managing customer exposure to marketing emails.

Price: Determined on the number of customers you have; get in touch for a quote

Who it’s best for: Customer relationship management professionals

Save time managing your social media presence with Hootsuite. From a single dashboard you can publish and schedule posts, find relevant conversions, engage the audience, measure results, and more. Try it free today.

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Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Jan 9 2024
Social Media Rules for Real Estate: A 2023 Guide

Table of Contents

There’s no doubt that social media is an amazing marketing tool for real estate professionals. But it’s important to remember that various real estate codes of ethics — and many local and national laws — apply to what you post. So before you publish your next Reel, Snap, TikTok, or Tweet (Xeet?), make sure you know the social media rules for real estate agents.

Peruse this guide if you’re a bit fuzzy on what constitutes a good or bad social media post. We’ve laid out laws and guidelines to keep your content ethical. We’ve also included several best practices and examples so you leave with a plan to make every post perfect.

Bonus: Get a free social media strategy template designed specifically for real estate agents, brokers, and marketers. Use it to easily plan your own strategy, track results, and keep your team in the loop.

8 social media rules for real estate agents and brokers

There are several cooks in the real estate social media rule kitchen. The National Association of Realtors (NAR), state and federal governments, and some social platforms have guidelines governing how agents and brokers present themselves online.

It may sound super complex, but for the most part, those rulebooks overlap. And if you boil it down, there are a few basic tenets to remember:

Now, let’s look at eight specific social media rules you should follow as a real estate professional.


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Rule 1: Identify yourself

For agent identification, you should treat a promotional social media post like you would any advertisement. That means certain identifying information needs to be present.

In general, a promotional real estate post should include:

  • The agent’s full name (e.g., “Rodney Jones,” not “Rod”)
  • Point of contact information for the agent or brokerage (e.g., phone number, email address, or physical address)
  • The brokerage company’s licensed name or DBA (e.g., “Jane Smith Realty LLC” or “Smith Realty”)

The rules stating which information is required and how it’s presented may vary by state. For example, in Florida you just need the name of the agent and broker. So make sure to review the laws where you work.

Here’s how real estate agent Jay Gonzalez presents herself on social posts.

Source: Jay Gonzolaz with HRA Realty Facebook page

Notice how she includes the brokerage in her Facebook account name. That’s a smart way to make sure it’s always visible. She also added a link to her brokerage’s Facebook page, making it easy to see the association between the two.

Rule 2: Always credit the listing agent when sharing their listings

There is some contention about whether you can promote a listing online without the listing agent’s (LA) consent.

The NAR’s code of ethics says it’s a no-go. Some states, like Georgia, also say you can’t promote a listing unless you’ve “secured the written permission of the owner, the owner’s authorized agent, or the owner of a leasehold estate.”

Vintage California Home 1924 Hollywood Hills

Source: Vintage California Home Instagram

What’s not in contention is that you don’t want to represent yourself as the listing agent if you are not. That means citing the listing agent in any post about a listing that’s not yours. Do so by giving the agent’s name, brokerage, and a link to their social media account or website.

One situation that trips up some agents is an open house. Say you visit an open house, snap some pics, and post them on Instagram. Your followers may get the impression that you represent the owner. So it’s best to make it clear who does.

But what about an internet data exchange (IDX) agreement that gives blanket permission to share listings? Social media platforms are not IDX compliant, meaning those agreements don’t cover social media posts.

Rule 3: Take ownership of your social media posts

According to the NAR code of ethics, you are responsible for any posts that end up on your social media account. Whether you, an intern, or an agency that posted it, if the message is shared through your account, you’re at fault for any rules it breaks.

That’s why you need to have a system in place so that only people with knowledge of industry regulations can review, approve, and publish content.

This rule is fundamental if you have third-party professionals on your social media team. They may be experts in creating and posting super-engaging content. But unless they have real estate experience, the chances are high that they’ll unknowingly publish a questionable post at some point.

The good news is that it’s easy to set up a strict and customized approval workflow with Hootsuite.

Manage approvals for social accounts on Hootsuite

Hootsuite’s customizable approval workflow makes it easy to keep all your posts compliant.

In Hootsuite, you can designate which content requires approval and which users can approve. You can even set up a multi-approver process for sensitive posts or those that would benefit from an extra set of eyes.


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Rule 4: Present listings truthfully

Social media is often the best place to make a first impression of the property you’re charged with selling. But there’s a thin line between presenting a home in its best light and misleading buyers with too many embellishments.

The NAR’s article 12 and many state rules prohibit the false misrepresentation of real estate in marketing, which includes social media posts. That can mean outright lying about total square footage or available parking. Or it can be adjusting a photo to hide a flaw.

example of a poorly edited real estate photo on Instagram

Source: r3alestate Instagram

Here are a few actions to steer clear of:

  • Editing any MLS data
  • Using vague descriptions (“close to the beach” vs. “0.2 miles from the beach”)
  • Over-editing a photo to make spaces look significantly larger
  • Editing out significant features from a photo

The same rules apply if an agent knows a property owner has given misleading or unverified information.

Rule 5: Don’t post negatively about other agents

There are all sorts of people working in real estate. Not everyone will see eye to eye. But airing frustrations publicly on social media isn’t just a bad look — it could land you on the wrong side of an ethics violation.

That’s especially true if the other agent challenges what you’ve said. Article 15 of the NAR’s code of ethics requires real estate professionals to “refrain from making false or misleading statements about other real estate professionals, their businesses, and their business practices.”

It’s also a good idea to never suggest that a disgruntled client take negative action against their agent. So don’t reply to a post from a frustrated homeowner saying they should fire their agent because you can do better.

Rule 6: List only correct and updated qualifications

Social media biographies are like the digital wall of your office where you hang diplomas and certifications. Clients peek at your profile and get the warm and fuzzies knowing they’ve hired a qualified professional.Elevate Real Estate Brokers Florida Facebook bio with sales statistics

Source: Elevate Real Estate Brokers Facebook

But it’s important to remember that the information you place in a bio needs to be correct, current, and certified.

For example, resist the urge to put “#1 real estate agent in San Antonio” in your bio just because your mom said so. But if a local real estate magazine names you as such, add it with pride (and cite the source).

It’s also important to regularly update your bio as your certifications and associations change. If you let a certification lapse, leaving it on your bio is misleading.

Make it a practice to review your online bios regularly. It’s easy to forget to make a change. So setting a calendar reminder to check them every quarter is a great failsafe.

Rule 7: Protect people’s privacy

This is one of the longest-standing rules for any real estate professional. It’s also one of the trickiest to follow when so much of your marketing relies on posting quickly to social media.

Of course, you’d never share confidential client information like their income. But what if you post a pic to show how busy your open house is and someone’s license plate is visible in the photo? They may not appreciate the exposure.

Another potential danger zone is at closing. It’s fun to share your buyer’s excitement while they sign the paperwork on their first home.

Closing day in new home Instagram Reel

Source: Zack.dallasrealtor Instagram

But there’s a lot of personal information on the closing table. One bad angle or unnoticed mirror can give internet sleuths a clear image of a social security number or bank account.

A few actions you should take before publishing any post:

  • Scrutinize any photo you’re about to post
  • Ask permission before publishing a post with people in it
  • Ask yourself, “if this was my information, would I want it shared?”
  • Never share specific details about commissions or profits

Those few precautions will help you avoid a lot of ethical hot water later on.

Rule 8: Adhere to the Fair Housing Act

Most real estate agents wouldn’t knowingly discriminate in their social media posts. But a post can go against The Fair Housing Act (FHA) in some subtle ways.

One example is how you target social media ads. If you exclude a specific zip code to keep a group of people from seeing the ad, you violate the FHA.

Some social media platforms like Facebook have recently built in new targeting permissions for real estate ads to make it easier to follow the rules. But not all have.

Here are a few other ways you could run afoul of the Fair Housing Act:

  • Prioritizing a specific religion: For example, mentioning the proximity of a specific church.
  • Discriminating based on family status: Targeting an ad so it excludes people who show interest in parenting blogs.
  • Discrimination by photography: Choosing images that don’t reflect the area’s population.

The NAR also suggests focusing on the property, not the “ideal” buyer or renter, in your ads or social media posts. And don’t forget to include “Equal Housing Opportunity” in your posts to show you’re committed to those ideals.

5 best practices for real estate marketing on social media

With so many rules from several governing bodies, it’s easy to feel intimidated. But there’s no reason to close your accounts and miss out on the benefits of using social media for real estate marketing.

Use these best practices to get the most out of your social media marketing strategy while staying within the rules for real estate professionals.

Create a social media policy

Every brokerage should have a codified set of rules for using social media.

This policy can cover everything from the approval process to the types of content people should post. It should define how an agent or broker is identified in posts and comments and include proper brand voice guidelines.

In addition, consider these topics for your social media policy:

  • Rules against plagiarism and the use of copyrighted images
  • Rules about sharing other agents’ listings
  • A confidentiality and privacy statement
  • Rules about disclosing alterations to images
  • A blanket statement about following all local and federal laws

Once you have the policy put together, make sure everyone verifies receipt of a copy.

Don’t forget to share with new agents and third parties that may post on your behalf.

Bonus: Get a free social media policy template to get started.

Set up a social media listening process

It’s good practice to regularly monitor your social media accounts for activity beyond what you post. That includes occasionally looking at what your agents post and reading the comments on your posts.

Savvy + Co Real Estate house Instagram comments

Source: Savvy + Co. Real Estate Instagram

Not only will this help you stay compliant, but you’ll also have more opportunities to engage with clients who reply to your posts.

Protect your account

You spend a lot of time building trust and a following on your social media accounts. A hacker can steal your credibility—and even lock you out of your account—in an instant.

Be aware of common social media hacks and scams. Protect your accounts with two-factor identification and solid passwords. And don’t share your passwords or place them somewhere they can be stolen.

Archive your social media activity

You never know when you’ll need to reference an old post. Maybe you delete a post that’s no longer relevant, and someone misquotes you. Or you want to find a post from two years ago. A searchable social media archive makes calling up that old activity easy.

Facebook and other social media platforms have instructions for archiving your activity. Hootsuite also lets you create a taggable archive for your records.

Batch and schedule posts

If you’re posting multiple times per week (or per day!), it’s hard to make sure all your posts follow the social media rules for real estate. Batching and scheduling your posts eases the pressure in two ways.

First, creating a week’s worth of content for all your channels in one session saves time and keeps you focused. You don’t have to worry about the time loss of context switching between the other 100 tasks on your list. Block an hour or two each week, knock out your posts, and get back to helping clients.

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Scheduling content ahead of time gives you space to come back and review what you’ve created before it goes live. That can be you taking a few minutes to double-check your work. Or it can be someone you trust giving your posts a once over. Either way, you’ll catch a lot more potential problems.

Social media rules for real estate: FAQs

Hopefully, the rules of social media for real estate agents will feel manageable now. Here are answers to frequently asked questions to help clarify them further.

Can you post another agent’s listings on social media?

Yes, but you should always reference the listing agent and provide a link to their website or social media account. Depending on your location and affiliations, you may also need to get their written permission.

Can I use the word “REALTOR®” on social media?

You can use the word REALTOR® in your title and on social media posts as long as you’re a registered National Association of Realtors member. If you are, you can also use the REALTOR® logo.

What social media compliance standards do real estate agents need to adhere to online?

Real estate companies need to consider several social media compliance standards when posting content online. These include state or local laws, the NAR code of ethics, your brokerage policies, and the rules of each social media platform.

Save time managing your social media presence with Hootsuite. From a single dashboard, you can publish and schedule posts, find relevant conversions, engage the audience, measure results, and more. Try it free today.

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