Showcasing your store online through videos and photos is an awesome way to introduce customers to your business, showcase your products and more. But before posting, there are a couple of tips and tricks you’ll want to consider to ensure you are putting your best foot forward!
Here are my top 5 tips for making sure you always look great while posting online!
1. Make sure things are neat and tidy
This might seem a little bit obvious, but you’d be surprised how many stores I come across online who post their messy or dusty shelves when they get a new product in or don’t pay attention to the surrounding environment when they post.
A messy store sends a couple of messages. One, it looks like you don’t care about how your store looks, and if you don’t care about how your store looks, customers might not think you care about helping them. Two, it can be extremely distracting and the message your customer walks away with might not be the message you intended.
2. Take photos and videos after you’ve received a shipment of supplies
One of the best times to take videos or photos of your store is right after you’ve received and put away a fresh order of supplies. Why? Because your shelves will look nice and full! Empty shelves can send a bad message online. Potential customers will wonder if somethings wrong — are you unable to keep the store stocked? Do you just not carry a lot of supplies? You always want to make sure that you look like you have exactly what your customer needs, and more!
3. Try to focus on one specific topic, rather than your whole store
Attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, so when you post you want to make sure you’ve got something long enough to get the necessary information across, without being so long that your viewer looks at the length and passes.
For example, an entire tour of a pet store would not necessarily be of interest to someone who only owns one type of pet. They will likely skim through your video quickly and miss all of the other great stuff you sell, and might even miss products that might be of interest to them!
Instead of posting a whole store tour, try to focus on one department at a time, and within that department, focus on some key products or educational pieces. This will ensure that the right people are viewing the content as well as getting some new pairs of eyes on it.
4. Customize your content for each platform you’ll be posting on
To make sure you’re getting the most out of your posts, you’ll want to make sure that the post is optimized for each platform. If we use the same example of the pet store posting a video, we would want to consider posting a 30-second clip to Instagram, a 45-second clip to Twitter, a 1-minute clip to Facebook, and a 2-minute clip to YouTube. Read more about video lengths here.
You’ll also want to consider custom graphics for each platform. For example, if you are posting a video to IGTV, you might want to choose an enticing custom design for the cover rather than picking a still from the video clip, especially if it’s part of a series. You’ll also want to do the same for YouTube or Facebook. Keep the graphics related to each other to show your customers your brand across the board, but with the platform they’re being used on in mind.
5. Get clear graphics for posting updates
It can be fun and useful to post updates about your store using graphics rather than a text post. Plus, it’s more likely to get attention if there’s a visual element. But it’s a fine line between a clear and pretty message, and a mishmash of words and photos that can be hard to read and understand.
Another important part of having clear graphics is looking professional. If your graphics look like they were made in MS Paint, or if the message doesn’t make a lot of sense, your customers might not be entirely sure what you are communicating. Read more about the impact of design on business here.
Another key aspect is to make sure your graphics look similar enough to create brand recognition, but still distinct enough from each other that your social media feed doesn’t look all the same!
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