5 Strategies for Improving Your Social Media Presence
In this day and age, social media is not only important but also vital to the growth and success of a floral business. Social media for floral designers is far more than posting pretty images for our friends and family to see. If utilized properly, it can be a real and significant marketing tool that will lead your customers to your website and ultimately convert those followers into paying clients.
Social media comes easy to some and not so easy to others, but no matter your technological background, everyone can create simple strategies to utilize it effectively. I’ve intentionally implemented the following five strategies in the last 18 months, and my social media presence has dramatically improved (and I also find it far more enjoyable than I used to!). So here we go! Here are my five top strategies to improve your social media presence.
1. Prioritize taking photos
Make it a priority to take images of your work before it leaves the studio. You can never have the excuse of “I don’t have enough photos!” if you ensure you are consistently taking images of your work.
Of course, it’s essential to follow up with photographers to get professional photos too, but it’s important to still get into the habit of taking your own pictures of your work. What if the photographer doesn’t want to share the images? Or what if it takes them two years to get them to you? What if the professional images are so heavily edited that the colors are completely wrong? Or what if the bride complains about her flowers and you have no photographic evidence of your work? There are so many reasons to take your own photos. Make this a regular part of your routine, and schedule in the extra 15 minutes or so before you start packaging everything up to take some pictures.
Side note: You don’t need a fancy DSLR camera! My iPhone has made some great shots. In fact, 70% of my Instagram feed consists of photos I (or my husband) have taken on my iPhone!
If you want to learn more about how to take great photos of your designs with your iPhone and more, check out Team Flower’s online class How to Photograph Flowers.
2. Create aesthetically pleasing images
Use all the natural light you have (photos taken under artificial or fluorescent lighting NEVER look as good!). And keep in mind, photo-editing apps can help clean up your pictures and make them look more professional—presets make this so easy to do! My personal favorite photo editing app is VSCO. Also, ensure the image is focused correctly; if your bouquet looks blurry, then the whole photo will look low quality.
3. Create a cohesive feed
What’s a cohesive feed? One that keeps a consistent look, feel, and tone in all of the posted photos. Usually, your favorite accounts you follow can provide good examples of this.
But you can accomplish a cohesive feed for yourself by regularly using the same presets and/or filters in your photo editing apps. Also, try to take photos in front of the same background, whether that be a plain white wall or another backdrop (I used the side of my house for a while!).
4. Plan OUT and/or schedule your posts
This changed the social media game for me. I used to put off posting images because I had no idea what to post or I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to think of a creative caption. I would realize that I hadn’t posted in a few days, but then I would continue to put off posting again and again because I couldn’t find the willpower or energy to choose the right image or think of the right caption.
There are many apps—such as Plann, Planoly, or UNUM—that will allow you to plan your Instagram feed by moving images around to experiment with different feed ideas and layouts. You can even go into the image and create a caption! That way, if you have a burst of energy, you can plan whole weeks (or months!) of Instagram content at a time. These apps will also allow you to schedule posts for the future so that they automatically post for you, but these versions of the app often cost extra money, and I prefer to be the one to press publish so I can respond to any comments quickly.
5. Engage with your audience
This will help to grow your following if Instagram can see that you are an active account—and it will also help you to develop connections with others in the industry. Reply to all comments and take the initiative by posting genuine comments on other people’s posts too. After all, it is social media. Make the most of it!
Another way to engage with your audience is by showing up on your Instagram and/or Facebook Stories. People want to see behind the scenes. Show your workspace. Show your face. Let people into your world. As Seth Godin said, “People don’t buy goods and services; they buy relations, stories, and magic.” If your client already feels like they know and trust you, they are more likely to buy from you.
I hope these five strategies have helped you! The main thing we all need to remember is just how important social media is for our businesses—it’s so important to think about how we can improve our social media presence to convert those followers into clients.
Keep reaching for those goals, flower friends!
