Feature Day Tips:Make the most of it
For NOTWE feature days, and the project generally, you get out what you put in. So I have collected a few of my top tips for how to get the most of out it. You can't just sit back and expect the sales to come rolling in.
Choosing Your Images
From my experience of looking at the instagram insights over the last few months, the posts that do best are those that are a single strong product image, and not montages or logos.
Showing off the best that you have is more effective than showing off a bit of everything. If you can see one great product on NOTWE you are more likely to click through and then look at all of the other great products on the businesses own pages. If the post is showing lots of small pictures and nothing really catches your eye, you're unlikely to look further. If is isn't an image you would post to your own feed, don't use it to advertise your business here.
Look at some of the best performing images from the whole feed. These are all single product images.
Interacting
If you're able to be actively on social media when the posts go up (I know jobs/childcare/existential dread can make this impossible) then it is really valuable to reply to any comments on your feature day posts. For a start, more comments shows higher engagement to the heathen Gods of Insta and Facebook, but also starts to build a relationship with any future customers.
If you're not able to be there on socials during the day, going back in the evening or the next day is still worth it. Thank people for compliments and answer any questions. If I see a customer question go unanswered, I do try to tag businesses in to make sure they are seen, but I can't be sure to get every one.
Hype Team
Your friends and family, and existing customers even, are your very best hype team. Message people and tell them that your day is coming up tomorrow and would they mind keeping an eye out so they can interact with the post.
I know this can sometimes feel eggy, BUT, they love you and are proud of you and are almost always willing to go and to like, save, share and comment. Tell them, it really does really help! Also tell them, that screenshotting the post and putting that on their stories, DOES NOT HELP. We need to use the little paper plane icon!
You can share the post on your own stories and ask people to go and check out the project and show your posts some love. The people who already follow your accounts do it because they like you and your business. Some people won't bother, but some people will.
"The Algorithm"
The way the algorithm works, apparently, is that a post is only put in 10% of followers feeds. If those 10% of people interact, THEN Instagram deems it good enough to show to more people, if they interact then more people see it and so on. If you don't get Shares and Saves and Comments and Likes (in that order of importance) then Instagram doesn't bother show it to anyone else. Because...capitalism, I guess.
How the day works:
1. Website Post
The website post about your business goes live at 9am on your day. Whilst we get a good number of unique visitors every day, this is admittedly probably not where most people will find you. It is however where people search through the featured businesses for a specific thing anytime.
2. Facebook Post
The Facebook post goes live at 10am on your day. In true social media fashion, the more interactions it had the more people it will be subsequently shown to. The Facebook page has 2.8k followers. Without being shared by facebook users the algorithm doesn't show the post to most of the followers. Without shares posts get a reach of less than 500. With shares some posts have a reach of 12,000.
3. Instagram Posts