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77: Getting More Engagement, Sharing Product Photos, + Discounts [Marketing Q&A]

77: Getting More Engagement, Sharing Product Photos, + Discounts [Marketing Q&A]

Welcome back to Making Good, the podcast for small businesses who want to make a big impact.

I’m your host, Lauren Tilden, and this is episode 77.

One thing I think about a lot as a small business owner is energy. 

How does the energy I bring to a task affect the result or final product?

In the same way you can sometimes FEEL an artist’s emotion in the final work of art, I think that we bring an energy to everything we do.

I’ve noticed this down to the smallest thing, like writing an email. If I put a little bit extra excitement and heart into what I write, things tend to go a lot better than if I’m just trying to slam through my inbox as quickly as possible.

When I can bring a calm and relaxed energy to my watercolors, they tend to come out a lot more free-flowing, and in my opinion, beautiful.

And, when I sit down to write an episode that I’m REALLY excited about, it comes out REALLY GOOD.

Which brings us to today. The topic I had planned for today’s episode is something super important that I can’t wait to get into… in a future episode.

But, I just was not feeling it today, so I’m doing a last minute change of plans to cover something that sounds better to me in this moment. 

We’re doing a marketing Q&A episode! I chose 4 questions that I received to my Instagram stories, and will be diving into those today.

Before we get started, a couple of things I wanted to chat about first..

Let’s talk about content. One thing that I hear over and over again is: I can’t figure out what to SAY in my marketing. If that sounds like you, I have an awesome workbook that will walk you through a process for generating A LOT of content ideas that your audience is guaranteed to love. To download that, head to: makinggoodpodcast.com/content.

Second, I invite you to join other values-driven small business owners for inspiration, accountability and lots of business and marketing strategy. That all takes place in the free Facebook community for this podcast, the Good Business Community. The link will be in the show notes, or you can go to makinggoodpodcast.com/community to be redirected.

FINALLY, if you love this podcast, there are a few ways you can help spread the love! First, I’d be so honored for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher to help others find the podcast. And second, take a screenshot while you’re listening and tag me on Instagram @laurentilden -- I would so love to connect with you and cheer you on!

Alright, now!

So let’s get into the first question:

I need help with engagement. I post daily (lives, etc.) but no one engages on my posts.

Okay, first of all -- I want to tell the person who wrote this question that they are so so so not alone in this! In fact, I’m betting that a pretty good percentage of people listening to this podcast episode right now can relate to this. 

So, know that you’re in good company.

That said, I do have 6 things for you and any listener on ways to improve engagement: 

  1. My first suggestion is to BE HUMAN. People want to engage with humans. Make sure that everything you share sounds like YOU wrote it. If it’s not something you would say on the phone to a friend, we need to go through and do some editing of how you’re writing.
    Another part of being human is to make sure you’re not selling too hard. People these days are very good at detecting when they’re being sold to, and it’s not going to do you any favors to sell ALL of the time. Aim to provide valuable content 80 percent of the time, and talk about/sell your product 20% of the time.

  2. Another thing to put some thought into is how you can start to build real relationships. A great place to start with this is Instagram stories -- get people used to interacting with you by using interactive features like story polls, question stickers, quizzes, etc. THEN, take it a step further by actually sending a direct message to everyone who participates to continue the conversation.
    Not to directly try to sell something to them… but to just get to know them better. This is almost like “training” people how to engage with you… People will be much more likely to engage on your content when they feel like they already have a relationship with you, and they’re used to engaging with you in the DMs or on stories.

  3. Tell people what to do. One thing that often works is to take the “thinking” part out of it for people, and simply tell them what action to take next. The EASIER the action is to take, the more likely they will be to do it. So for example, saying something like “drop a heart emoji below if you agree!” is a lot easier than “tell me your favorite childhood memory…” which makes people stop and think and put some effort into responding. Giving people super easy ways to engage by telling them exactly what to do is a great way to improve engagement.

  4. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention your ideal customer here. If you’re doing a lot of these strategies and not getting a response, it might be worth spending some time getting to know your ideal customer and making sure that you’re creating content that is exciting and relevant to them… that is directly answering questions or challenges they have, or providing value just for them. And then, when you have really nailed that ideal customer profile, make sure that you’re communicating just to them.
    Check out episodes 52 and 75 for more on the ideal customer.

  5. Finally, keep showing up! For most of us, social media is a long game, and results are seen over time… not immediately.


How do you get people to show your items on their Instagram accounts?

OOOH, this is a fun one. Basically we’re wondering, how do we get people to help us do our marketing for us!

For me, this falls into two different categories:

  1. How do we get people to post about our products on their own?

  2. How do we get people to re-share our social media content?

Let’s talk about both of them.

First up: How do we get people to post about our products on their own?

  1. Something I talked about in my response to the previous question is that often times -- telling people what to do can be the most powerful thing we can do.
    If you have a physical product, you might consider including a little note in the package encouraging people to share a photo of your product in their home. Some people use a custom hashtag for this, and you could go as far as incentivizing this somehow -- free shipping on their next order, for example? Or, tell them that you’ll re-share when they tag you -- which is a way of getting them some more attention.

  2. I would also recommend that you think hard about the customer experience of receiving your product. If you can make it unusual, or beautiful, ro stand out to them in some way, that might make them more likely to share it spontaneously.

  3. Consider doing a giveaway or contest. Often times this means teaming up with a couple of other makers, but you could do it yourself as well. The key part is to make sure that one of the ways people can get entered into the giveaway is by sharing a photo of your product and tagging you in it -- either to their Instagram feed, Instagram stories, or on some other platform.

  4. Finally, think about working with influencers. This is not an area that I have ANY expertise in, so I have an episode coming up about this, but -- many influencers accept product for free in exchange for posting about it… or request a small fee. Most small, small businesses are going to be looking for what are called micro-influencers --- and the important thing is to make sure that you find someone who has an audience full of people who would be good ideal customers for you. Stay tuned for an episode alllll about this.

Now, digging into the second part of this answer: How do we get people to re-share our content on social media.

  1. Create shareable content. The kinds of content that people love sharing are things that are humorous or entertaining (things like memes, or reels that are funny), OR inspiring content -- quotes work really well for this. It’s much harder to get people to share photos of your product, but even if they’re sharing a photo that isn’t strictly your product, it’s still a good way of increasing your visibility.

  2. Am I a broken record yet? You want to TELL people to share your content -- specifically, ask people to share to their stories which is a LOT easier than posting to a feed. I’ve done this a bunch of times. A fun way to do it is to create a graphic in a bunch of different color schemes, and then ask people to share their favorite to their stories. You can say something like, “Inspired by this quote? Share your fave version to your stories.”

How often do I need to post my products when I’m trying to mix up my feed?

This is a good question for product-based businesses. Basically… when we’re trying to create an Instagram or other social media feed that is interesting and fun to engage on, how do you balance posting product photos with other photos?

There’s definitely not one right way to go about this. You’ll see some (successful!) businesses who exclusively post photos of their products, and some who post only occasional photos of their products.

I think I would say that at least 50% of your photos should include your product in them somewhere. 

I know for a lot of us it feels like, how can we possibly keep things fresh and interesting when we’re just posting the same products over and over again?

I would encourage you to get creative about the photos! For example, if you make earrings…. You could post some product photos of just the earrings. Some photos could be of a model wearing the earrings. Some photos could be of a bunch of earrings packaged and getting ready to ship. Some photos could be of a bunch of sets all merchandised as if for sale at a market or in a store. You could take a close up of some earrings in the palm of your hand -- get creative. Even if you’ll be posting the same earrings over and over again, you can make the photos different by getting creative in your product photos.

I also want to remind you that even if you post an image of a pair of earrings you made, the caption doesn’t have to be about those earrings. You could write about the morning you had today, or something that inspired you to design this particular product, or the vacation you’re looking forward to… whatever. Don’t feel pigeon holed to only talk about the same thing over and over again because that’s the product you’re sharing.

Now, how do you think about your non-product photos? That’s up to you. Maybe it’s behind the scenes photos or videos of packaging your products to go out the door. Maybe it’s a headshot of you, the founder of the business, or a member of your team (even your pup who keeps you company!) Maybe it’s an image of something that inspires you. 

What do you think about discount codes?

This is a great question and I want to start by saying that there is absolutely not a right answer to this question.

The important thing to ask yourself before using a lot of discount codes is, “what is my intention?”

One use case that I think is pretty good for using discount codes is to get someone to sign up for your email list. Regular listeners know that I am ALL ABOUT the power of email… but sometimes the hardest part is simply getting people to sign up to be on our email list.

Providing a discount code for a percentage off or free shipping is a pretty good incentive to give someone in exchange for their email address. For me, having someone join my email list is WORTH the cost of them using that discount code to spend less money with me that one time.

However, some brands, particularly luxury brands, don’t like to use discount codes -- EVER. And that’s totally fine too!

I will also do occasional sales using a discount code -- occasional meaning a couple times per year. This is another thing you can think about doing as an incentive to buy… but you do just want to be careful about this. We can all think of those brands that you will ONLY SHOP AT when there’s a big sale going on, because they have sales so often you can just wait for the next one.

We really don’t want to train our audience/customers to ONLY BUY from us when there’s a sale going on, and the best way to make sure that we don’t do that is to not have sales/discount code promotions happen too often

One last thought. You could also think about discount/promo codes in a different way. What if someone could use a code, and instead of getting a discount, they got a free sticker or something small in their order?  

Alright! That’s what I have for you today. You can find all the notes from this episode at makinggoodpodcast.com/77.

Did you like this Q&A style episode? Let me know on Instagram by messaging me over at @laurentilden, or take a screenshot of this episode in your podcast player and tag me on Instagram @laurentilden.

A couple things I think you might love before I sign off:

First, I have an awesome guide to creating great marketing content and coming up with new ideas. Download it (FREE) at: makinggoodpodcast.com/content.

Second, there’s a Facebook community of amazing other small business owners and great content just for the group that I would love for you to join. makinggoodpodcast.com/community.

Thank you for being here, and for focusing on making a difference with your small business!

Talk to you next time.

75: The 5 Stages of the Customer Journey

79: One Simple Exercise to Help You Write Better Marketing Content (+ Bonus Tips)