friday favorite marketing tips

Friday Favorites: Highlighting the Best Blogs, Instagram Tips and McMinnville Events This Week.

Rachel’s Favorite Hack

Something cool happened when I was instagramming (is that a word?) the other day.

Instagram automagically @mentioned the person I wanted to reply to in a comment. I was like, “cool!” when it happened. Then I figured out what I did to make that happen and have since been using this hack to save time when posting comments on Instagram.

A few days later, I was showing the Suite 4 team at one of our weekly Sip & Strategize meetings how to do this, and they thought it was the coolest thing too, so I decided to share it with you.

Here’s how you can quickly reply to a specific person’s comment on any Instagram post:

  1. Hold your finger down on the person’s name in the comments.
  2. Release your finger and Instagram will pop up the comments window with the other person’s name already @mentioned.
  3. Add your reply to them, and voila!

Why is this so cool?
Well, because it saves your poor little a fingers a bit of extra typing.

And it’s just plain cool that Instagram helps you automate the process. Enjoy!

Devon’s Favorite Blog

You’ve probably noticed we’re not always so great at updating our own blog content. When we get busy taking care of our clients, it’s easy to let our own blog fall by the wayside. But about a month ago we decided to start practicing what we preach to our clients. So, while we’ve been trying to become more active on the Suite 4 blog, I was immediately interested when Buffer said they stopped publishing new content for a whole month – on purpose!

I won’t get into the specifics of the full article, but you should definitely read through it here. They stopped focusing on new content and instead updated old content with new information or repurposed popular content for other mediums. For example, a successful blog was turned into a Slideshare. This experiment allowed them to focus their energy on different ways to generate traffic and analyze what worked- and what didn’t. The blog completely lifts the curtain to show us their thought process behind the experiment and the results from it. Ultimately, it proves the importance for new content, as long as we don’t neglect other methods to drive traffic and leads.

Audrey’s Favorite Local Highlight

mcminnville local farmers' market

Living and working in downtown McMinnville during the summer has a lot of perks. One that I am especially enjoying is the McMinnville Farmers’ Market. Every Thursday afternoon we have the pleasure of enjoying the lively atmosphere of the vendors on Cowls Street between 2nd and 3rd streets. They have the freshest fruit and veggies (the berries are my favorite!). There’s just something about getting produce straight from the farmer. The farmers’ market has definitely swayed me and there’s no going back now. Not only is the food wonderful, but the atmosphere is fun and inviting. The vendors are all friendly and many even give you tastes of their products. If you’re not looking for food, be sure to check out the merchants selling other products too like soaps and jewelry. Often there is someone playing some live music for everyone to enjoy too. So if you’re in town on Thursday, be sure to stop by between 1pm and 6pm and support your local businesses.

Cassie’s Favorite App

Has Hootsuite just revolutionized the Instagram world? I don’t want to be too dramatic about this update to Hootsuite, but I can’t help but realize how revolutionary this upgrade is. Hootsuite has started to schedule Instagram posts and are doing it better than everyone else. You can use it to effectively monitor your brand, your competitors and keywords to get the full picture of the audience you’re trying to reach. It also lets you manage Instagram as a team. This update allows you to use Hootsuite as a single dashboard. Who doesn’t love that? The Hootsuite App is free, though the service is not, and it’s definitely a must-download for the busy business owner and marketing team!

 

What’s your favorite thing you’ve read this week? Share it with us in the comments!
If you have any recommendations for what should be featured in next week’s Friday Favorites, we want to hear that too!