In the past week there have been some very useful changes to two of the most popular social media channels.
Facebook has rolled out a new feature that allows businesses to privately message customers and Instagram has finally been integrated with Hootsuite, to the joy of social media managers everywhere.
The new messaging tool on Facebook will allow businesses to respond privately to public messages, helping them to take potentially negative conversations away from the public eye. Facebook will also log the response time to public comments.
Carswell Gould's PR account manager, Laura Downton, recommends taking full advantage of the new private measure. She said:
"Keep your business looking friendly and helpful by responding to 90 per cent of your messages within five minutes - it'll earn you a 'very responsive to messages' badge."
Advertisers will also be able to use 'send a message' as a call-to-action on Facebook adverts. To help with the potential increase in messages to the business page, Facebook has also introduced stock answers that businesses can add to as they see fit.
Instagram opened its API recently, which marketing technology companies have taken full advantage of. Quick off the mark was Hootsuite, which now allows you to compose and schedule Instagram posts on your normal dashboard. However, social media managers who have had to log in to Instagram even on Christmas day in the past shouldn't get too excited - Instagram still requires you to publish the post through the app on your mobile.
Hootsuite will send you a push notification when it is time to post and by clicking on the notification, Instagram will pull up your photo and caption pre-loaded. You will also need to filter or adjust your photos in the app.
The integration of Instagram and Hootsuite also means you can efficiently monitor and engage with your community on Instagram. Hootsuite allows you to set up streams of searches, hashtags, specific users and locations. From the streams you can like and comment on photos and easily monitor conversations happening about your business.
Now that Instagram can be managed from the same dashboard as the rest of a business' social media channels, monitoring it should be as simple as Twitter. We predict this will see an increase in the amount of businesses using the photo-sharing app, as its effectiveness as an interaction tool grows.
Image: Hootsuite
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