If you stumbled across this post itβs probably because you are a hot nonstop entrepreneur googling “the next great business venture” – if this is true then you should probably pop on over to the Own Your Own page to buy a screen, think of a name, get a package and create a listing. Then come back here to get help on how to set up your social media. BOOM you are now in business!
Otherwise, we expect you are here because you have just signed up for a package and set up your Listing on Pop-Up Cinema. So now itβs time to reach out to a larger audience and the best way to do that is to have a presence on social media. This will also allow you to take full advantage of the social media shout out weβll give you!
FORGOT YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PASSWORD?
Letβs get this out of the way first – Forgot Your Password – you created an account ages ago and canβt for the life of you remember the password. Donβt worry we had to do it too. Hopefully, you know the email address associated with the account – if not you may have to make a few attempts at discovering which one you used. You can still recover your account but you will need to access the email address you used to get the account. If all else fails just start fresh!
PRO TIP: Donβt co-opt that account you created years ago for your business, create a new one. Like, for example, say you have a @silly_name for a Twitter account you thought up one night (possibly when not in your right mind) so you could follow some joke sites your friend put you onto. Donβt use it.
If you don’t use social media personally, thatβs totally fine we are not here to judge, but if you do, really consider creating a brand new profile for your business. People will look at it when thinking of following you or inquiring about your business. The upside to creating a new account and you also have a personal one is that you can drive people from your personal account to your business account.
CHOOSING YOUR HANDLE (aka Username, profile name or account name)
Your handle is the @yourbusinessname that you create on all the platforms that makes up this new world of βfreeβ advertising and reach, called social media. Even if you arenβt going to use one particular platform or another you want to secure that handle on all the platforms where possible. Start brainstorming the perfect name!
STEP 1: PICK YOUR PLATFORMS
There are so many platforms these days: some that are regional, some that are politically specific, itβs a good idea to do a little research to figure out which ones are going to have the biggest impact on your companyβs brand, marketing, and presence.
STEP 2: SEARCH YOUR @HANDLE
Search for the @handle you want to use across all the platforms you decide on [yes, at the same time – multiple browser tabs are cool]. Is it available on them all? Great – sign up immediately to secure those accounts! Go ahead, weβll wait.
If your preferred @handle itβs not available, youβre going to have to choose a new favorite that is available, or get clever. You can make slight adjustments Like we said itβs ideal to have the same @handle across all social media or at least really similar to each other to make cross-posting easier and also to make you discoverable to your customers. We would suggest starting with Instagram and Twitter (Facebook is a separate beast). If you canβt, not to worry, you will still be able to be found by your βNameβ as well. So keep this in mind when creating your accounts for your business.
STEP 3: CREATE THE ACCOUNTS
So all you really need to set up the accounts is an email address. We strongly recommend you use a business email address, but not the one you use for your general correspondence. Why do we say that? Well, hackers are a real and present threat, so if your social media accounts should ever get hacked, at least they wonβt have access to your main business email as well. Smart right?! Try using email accounts like social@yourcompanyname.com or you could set up a whole new address like yourbusinessnamesocialmedia@gmail.com.
After you’ve set up the accounts you’ll want to complete your profile by adding a profile image, a description/bio and a way for people to reach you. This is simple. Basically, two sentences are all you can use on the most limited bio (each platform has specific limitations on the character count of bio’s so be sure you are aware and tweak yours accordingly). When drafting your bio, just answer these two questions: Who are you? What do you do? There are other βfieldsβ on your profile set up for location and link (for your website).
TO INFINITY AND BEYOND
YOUR FIRST POST: Regardless of which platform or all of them at once, this is the creative part! Donβt get daunted or too caught up in it being perfect. Just like blogging, you want to think about βthe voiceβ of your business and βthe look.β You can just post willy nilly and it will be fine but if you put a little thought into it first you can really make it a marketing tool.
WORDS: Each platform is slightly different – in terms of their rules – this mostly has to do with the number of words or rather more specifically the number of characters (like letter count) that can go into a post.
IMAGES: not so much size but the shape is important. Instagram uses a square cropped shape so start there. Also, you can TAG people and our social media account in your pictures to reach a larger audience. All the platforms have filters and ways to add text to your posts to grab attention.
VIDEOS: Oh boy, videos are huge on social media. And there are lots of different things you can do:
- Reels/Fleets (15 seconds or 30 seconds and less, Instagram/Twiter).
- Stories (Instagram and FB).
- Regular Video Posts (Up to a minute on Instagram, the only platform that categorizes by the length of time).
- IGTV (long format more than a minute, Instagram).
- LIVE streaming function.
HASHTAGS AND TAGGING: Hashtags (#) cost nothing and allow you to be as creative and audience-focused as you want. Now that you’re set up with your listing and your social media become part of our community by utilizing the hashtags we use and tagging (@) our social media accounts in your posts and pictures.
Be sure to Like/Share/Retweet/Repost your listing when you see it on our social media channels!
REPOSTING, RETWEETING, SHARINGβ¦
itβs basically digital recycling. If you have read our other blogs about joining the listings you have read this term already. We will do our best to make our post about your company as focused as we can and so when you share it on your page you will get all that lovely traction. Like having chewy tires on your 4×4. Check out the apps in your fav app store called βREPOSTβ for Instagram.
You may or may not know this but Facebook owns, itself obviously, but it also owns Instagram and Whatsapp (I know, this bummed me out too when I found out). The upside to the same company owning FB and Insta is they are connectable, especially if you have business accounts. But be careful which FB page you link to your Instagram. On Facebook, there are different βpagesβ you can have e.g.: Personal and Business. You want to make sure when you are connecting your Insta page to FB you connect the right one. Some people (like personality/celebrity types) will decide to use their personal FB page for their βbizβ, we donβt recommend this for two reasons:
- You donβt want your Aunt posting pics of you in the bathtub when you were a kid on your biz page nor do you want personal comments up there.
- Personal pages are limited to a number of βfriendsβ so you will eventually hit a wall if your business is a success.
You can lock down or provide as little info as you want on your personal page but you will want a robust page for your business page with lots of info for customers. The best way for everyone but especially yourself to keep them separate is to use images in your profile that are specific: for your personal page – yourself or your kid whatever but for your business: Your Logo, Your storefront, something that will prevent your Auntie thinking itβs your personal page.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Hope this gets you off on the right (correct) track and helps you get started. Keep in mind the social media sites constantly update the way you can provide your media to your audience so itβs a good idea to use your social media regularly.
And just to recap: Put the Link from your Pop-Up Cinema Listing in your social media bio, follow us, use our hashtags (#popupcinema), tag us in your pics, mention us in your posts and create your own unique identifying hashtags to make it easy for your audience to find out what you are doing and where.
Feel free to browse the blog posts for ideas on what to post and when – the What to Show section is almost like a monthly “what’s happening” calendar. Get your questions answered in our FAQβs section.
FEELING OVERWHELMED?
Our blog posts address many areas of running a pop-up cinema business and it can get overwhelming, so we have also designated areas of the blog for the 3 stages of a business ownerβs journey to make it a bit easier to see targeted relevant info in one spot, they are:
In addition to categories, if you are looking for information on a specific topic β use the keywords on the side panel to go directly to a curation of those topics.