carissa@spoonfulofeasy.com

Nov

2020

5 Quick Tips for Social Media Videos

Social media videos tend to be more engaging and tend to get ranked higher in the algorithm but not all social media videos are created equal. With a little prep, you can be ready for effective videos that really resonate with your audience! Here are my best tips for both people-focused and product-focused videos.

Plan Ahead

Planning probably goes without saying, but make it strategic. What is the point of the video? Are you saying things that people could honestly just read? What value are you giving them by going on camera? Get your goal in mind and think through your video’s value and it will definitely be something that speaks to your audience!

Keep it Steady

If you’re going to do a lot of lives or videos where the camera holds still while focused on someone, please get a tripod. It is impossible to hold a camera still for minutes at a time. You don’t want people wondering if there’s an earthquake where you are and totally tuning out on the point of the video.

Be Yourself

For people-focused video and lives, I would probably make this #1 because this is my absolute essential piece of advice. People get so caught up in what they’re “supposed” to say, that they turn into like the 8th grade version of themselves giving a report on Custer’s Last Stand in front of their history class.

Don’t worry about it. Truly. Be yourself — people are tuning in to see you! Just relax and try to hit the high points. Or better yet — some great advice I recently received from a friend: plan on the outcome you want and trust the words to come.

What would you rather watch? Someone hitting all of the things they wanted to say, but in as a super stiff version of themselves, or someone who’s engaging and fun but messes up a few words and has to start over? Take a cue from SNL: grab some posterboard and write your key points and have someone hold them up behind the camera. If you need to reference it, it’s there, but you’re not so focused on saying the exact right thing.

Check the Audio

This is more for the case of product-focused videos, but does the background noise add to the video or distract from it? Most people will listen to non-people videos on with the sound off as a default, but you don’t want someone to turn the volume up and get blasted with the noise of someone running an espresso machine and your coworkers talking loudly in the background. The next tip gives you an easy way to lift the audio — because “be quiet guys! I’m filming” always leads to someone loudly walking into the room during a critical point.

Use an editor

If you’re just taking videos on your smartphone for social, I cannot recommend InShot enough. You can easily lift audio (see above), link clips together, add transitions, layer in a logo, resize for different platforms … the list goes on. And it’s FREE! There are some paid options, but 90% of how I use InShot involves the free features.

You can slow it down or speed it up, overlay text, add a filter, trim the front and back and more. This is turning into a love letter to InShot, but it’s really a great tool and super intuitive to use.

Here’s an example of a video that was just medium at regular speed, but really popped with a quick speed change!

Any tips I missed or questions you have about taking videos for social media? I’d love to hear in the comments!

Nov

2020

Maximizing Your Restaurant Takeout Pictures For Content

Our region of the state has recently rolled out additional restrictions for restaurants and they are only able to offer takeout or delivery options. Content is more needed than ever to get your customers in the door — or on the phone or on your app! — but you may feel limited by the kinds of pictures you can take. Let’s be honest, not a lot of food looks super photogenic in a Styrofoam container. Here are my tips for maximizing your content around a takeout and delivery message:

Shoot Beautiful Tablescapes

People aren’t so literal that they’ll think you’re packaging up the plate for them. Don’t discount these hero images for your Facebook cover or repurpose and resize them from different angles for Instagram. You want people to imagine they have all of these delicious dishes lined up in front of them — even it it’s at home! Take time to showcase your dishes to their fullest potential even if it means using real plates. People eat with their eyes first and a dark shot of some food in a togo container isn’t going to cut it.

Show Them How to Order

How to you want your customers to reach you? Have online ordering or an app? Do a quickie screen record of how to use your mobile app or website.

Want them to give you a call? Make a graphic with your phone number or do a funny meme with “customer service representatives are standing by” or show one of your top employees waiting by the phone. Or make a quickie video showing them how to use your site and how mobile friendly it is!

And put it out there … a lot. Not the same exact piece of content, but you really can’t get your call to action out there enough. Post about it AT LEAST once a week in a dedicated post and mention it in many of your other posts.

Showcase Safety

Pop a mask on your logo, send an email to your customers about your safety measures, show a contactless delivery, make a list of safety requirements you email with every takeout order confirmation. Let them know safety is at the top of your list and that they can feel comfortable and safe ordering from you!

Seek Out User-Generated Content

Get pictures of your food being enjoyed in the wild! Ask customers to tag you at home, monitor your local hashtags or just straight up ask your best customers for their pictures. This takes the pressure off of you and lets people see the connection you make with your customers!

Tell Your Story

Food pictures are important — food is the reason people are coming to your restaurant, right? But mix story shots in with your food pics as well. Show the food being prepped, show a picture of the chef, talk with the staff. Remind your customers of the people behind the business. Sometimes I see the “eat local” hashtag or message pushed almost aggressively. When you remind them of your story and the people behind the business, they won’t need to be reminded to eat local, they’ll be invested in you and your story as well!

Any other tips I missed? I’d love to hear in the comments!

Oct

2020

Celebrating All Those “Days” and What It Can Mean For Your Business

If you’re like me, it might feel like every time you turn around it’s another “day.” National Son Day, National Ice Cream Day, National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day. One day I joked that I was going to invent a day like “National Red Licorice Lovers Appreciation Day” and just act like everyone missed out to see what happened. I still might 🙂

So you might be wondering, do I need to hop on the bandwagon with all of these days?! How will I keep up?! And the answer is yes and no. No, you don’t need to go crazy chasing down every “day” and trying to do something for your business. That would be exhausting and leave your customers heads spinning!

But I do think you can and should make that calendar work for you and your business. If there’s something in there that’s fun and feels right, go for it! Have a gift store? Definitely do some hype about Sweetest Day! Run a barbecue restaurant? National Pulled Pork Day is coming up and makes sense and could be fun.

Now more than ever, I think people are looking for an engaging with these small, no pressure holidays as something easy to look forward to, especially if they can have fun and participate in a way that makes them feel safe. Maybe it’s just offering free gift wrap to Sweetest Day shoppers, or running a special on pulled pork sandwiches to make the holiday fun for your customers and a good fit for your business.

The best way to get ahead of them? Work on your content calendar a few months out. You don’t need to know every single post, but fill in those special “days” that could be a good fit for your business, get them on the calendar and start thinking of ways to engage your customers using that as a prompt. Because at the end of the day, that’s what it is — just a great prompt and a way to engage!

Any questions on how to get started on a content calendar? I’d love to hear in the comments!

Oct

2020

Do You Need To Respond To Negative Reviews?

Yep.

But what if … Yep. Still yep.

This one is a hard one because you’re going along, getting some great engagement, maybe a few rave reviews and then a negative review comes along and can just send you into a tailspin. Don’t let it! Negative reviews can be one of two things: opportunities to improve, or a way to showcase your exceptional customer service skills.

Here are a few steps you can take to deal well with negative reviews:

1. Don’t Ignore It

A Hubspot survey reported that 50% of customers will stop going to a business that doesn’t answer negative posts on social media and 80% expect to receive a response within 24 hours. Just like you wouldn’t ignore an upset customer in person, definitely don’t do it online. Unfortunately, it’s not going away if you ignore it.

2. Separate Their Facts From Their Feelings

This is a big one. Sometimes when someone’s behind a computer screen, their delivery can be a bit … fiery. And that can make you defensive, and ready to fire something off right back. Take a deep breath, take a look at the review and figure out if there’s truth to it. Were you really busy Saturday and it’s possible someone waited in line for 20 minutes only to be told they were out of the special? This is a great learning opportunity and an opportunity to improve for your staff! Imagine if they never told you and never gave you the chance to make it right. Opportunities to improve are never negative.

3. Separate Your Facts From Your Feelings

You are so incredibly passionate about your business and your customers or you wouldn’t be doing what you’re doing, right? So resist the urge to say, “It was so crazy busy and we were all doing the best we could!” Well that’s a feeling and I think that goes without saying. The facts would look more like, “Thank you so much for taking the time to share your feedback. We were busier than expected on Saturday — a great problem to have!– and our staff scheduling fell short of making your experience up to our usual standards. We will be looking more closely of our coverage going forward and we so appreciate you sharing your experience so we can improve.” If you need to write a feelings based response first and delete it, I completely understand.

4. Take it offline

This goes for Google My Business reviews, Yelp, social media reviews and comments. If it’s answerable, answer it right away. But what if it’s a sticky situation? Like you’ve looked at the facts and you really need more information in order to handle this situation, or maybe the review isn’t 100% adding up and you need to understand more. Take it offline. Say something validating but vague like, “I’m so sorry to hear about your experience. We’d really like to hear more and find out how we can make it right. Could you message us with a contact number we could reach you at? Our owner would love to give you a call.” I would say 95% of the time, people are way calmer over the phone/in person vs. an online review. Then you can ask all the questions you need to while still showing other customers’ that you care deeply about their experience.

5. This Is Actually A Chance to Shine

I remember one time — pre-social media — I had a terrible experience at a restaurant. I asked to speak to the manager, and I said I knew they were busy, but … He kindly interrupted me and said we opened this place to be busy. We should do as well for you during a peak time as a slow time, and I’m so sorry your experience fell short. Here’s what I’m going to do to make it right. I honestly couldn’t tell you what went so poorly during that visit, but I have thought about what they did to make it right for a lot of years! When I look at reviews of a business and see a one-star review with a great response from the company, that is a 5-star review in my eyes. Of course things are going to go wrong sometimes, we’re humans running businesses staffed by other humans. It’s how you handle it when things go wrong that people are really watching. Make it a chance to really shine!

Any sticky review situations you’ve run into? I’d love to help! Comment below or email me at carissa at pinkpunchmarketing.com

Sep

2020

Protect Your Digital Assets

One of the biggest pieces of advice that I offer to small business owners is to protect access to your digital assets just like you would the keys to the cash register. In this post I’ll walk you through what you can do today to protect your ass(ets).

What are digital assets?

I would count this as your Google My Business profile, social media profiles, access to your website, app management — anywhere where your business has an online digital footprint.

I’m all for delegating and having someone else manage your social media pages (obviously!) but I’ve seen quite a few cases where an ex-employee created or exclusively managed the business’ social media pages or Google My Business and when they left, no one had access. Always be open to delegating, but always, always be able to regain control/protect access to these pages as needed.

Protections To Put In Place

This varies a bit by social channel, and I’ll run through the ones I have personal experience with trying to recover, but keep a list of all of your profiles and who has access to what so you can change it at any time.

Apple/App Store

If you have an app that is in any way managed through the Apple app store, stop what you are doing and IMMEDIATELY make sure you have admin access. Like immediately. I worked for a company that had a third party manage the app as a platform, but the company still needed to log in in order to accept terms of use updates, etc. Getting back control of this when someone has left and your role doesn’t control assigning other roles is extremely time-consuming and stressful. It involves so much time and follow up and I promise you that you will thank yourself if you make this a priority today.

Facebook

Now let’s knock out the most complex social channel: Facebook. First, make sure yours is the profile that is associated with the page and do an page roles audit right away. Anyone that is no longer with your company should absolutely be removed. Ensure every page role is a current employee and in the future make sure the page role you assign makes sense. Here is an easy to follow guide straight from Facebook that explains each role so you can decide which is the best fit for you to assign. Also if you have a private group within your page that someone else has created for you, chances are they are your sole admin. Make sure you have admin access (and therefore control!) over all parts of your Facebook page.

If you have lost control of your page (you don’t know your log-in, your profile isn’t associated with the page, a former employee you’re not in touch with is the sole admin) there are ways to get control of your page again, but it definitely takes time & troubleshooting and Facebook is rumored to be largely unsympathetic to these types of situations. No one fix seems to work for everyone and it’s a bit of just trying different solutions until you find one that works for you. If you are in this situation, please email me at carissa at pinkpunchmarketing.com and I will walk you through a few options that I’ve seen work in the past!

Instagram

For Instagram, there is just one log in email address, so make sure it is one you have access to. Even if an employee leaves on good terms, do you really want to have to chase them down just to log into your own page, especially if there’s information you need to change or get out right away?

Since you can toggle between profiles on your phone app without re-logging in, always change your password whenever an employee leaves, even if it’s on good terms.

On LinkedIn, much like Facebook, you have a role through your personal profile for your company’s profile. Make sure you are an admin so that you can remove/grant access as needed. I will say that LinkedIn is the absolute easiest platform in terms of the support they give you if you’ve lost control of your page. They can help you find your admins and if you’re unable to get them to relinquish control, LinkedIn gives you steps to take (outlined really well here) to get control of your page back.

Twitter

Twitter is a lot like Facebook in that you can assign account roles so that you don’t have to completely share passwords, etc. This Twitter FAQ page here does a great job of spelling out all the differences.

A Few Last Thoughts

If you have an SOP in place for when employees leave, absolutely add this to your checklist of steps to take. Just like you would always make sure you get your door keys back, remove admin access on profiles and change passwords if needed. Even in an employee leaves on great terms, it’s just bad business protocol for someone who doesn’t work for you to access to your company assets.

Any questions or need help getting your pages back? I’d love to hear from you!

Aug

2020

3 Quick Food Photography Tips for Restaurants

Looking for easy-to-implement tips to up your food photography game? Today I’m sharing three quick tips on how to better showcase your amazing food offerings!

I don’t know if there’s a more fast-paced setting to shoot for content than a restaurant. To keep the food costs down, most chefs would prefer you take pictures of actual, plated food as it goes out the window. You don’t really have a lot of time to set up the composition without slowing down ticket times and you just have to get what you can get, right?

I definitely agree that you’re working with what you’re working with. I don’t stand in the way of ticket times in an active restaurant setting for anything! But that doesn’t mean you can’t get great scroll-stopping food photography on the go. One caveat, I would absolutely suggest investing in a larger, more professional shoot for anything that’s going into print or for larger website and digital menu work. But for an Instagram story about specials, or just a quick Facebook post about tonight’s amazing offerings, it’s the iPhone all the way!

Here are three quick tips (with more to come!) to elevate your iPhone food photography:

Tip #1: Take As Many Pictures As You Can

This is one of the really fun — and really frustrating! — things about photography, iPhone or otherwise. Sometimes you just can’t tell what you’ve gotten until you see it on the screen. This is why so many professional photographers shoot tethered (cord attached to a laptop so you can review as you shoot) from a DSLR — there’s no surprises with something you didn’t see initially but that shows up onscreen.

This is one area where the iPhone has a great advantage: you can easily review your pictures in real time. I had about 10 minutes (which is a lot in the restaurant world!) to grab this creme brulee shot and I grabbed about 30 pictures. I wasn’t even honestly sure if I’d gotten what I was looking for until I went in to review and there was this one perfect shot.

I once heard that Kim Kardashian will shoot up to 600 pictures of the same pose just to find that one that checks all the boxes. I’ve never gotten up to 600 (yet!), but never be afraid to just snap as many as you have time for!

Tip #2: A Word on Using Hands

Don’t get me wrong, I love using hands in food photography. It gives you another angle or take on the same shot and just makes the viewer feel even more a part of the scene. Like they could totally imagine themselves reaching out and grabbing that cotton candy/wine slushie/kebab too. But this is one area where you have to slow down and get a little awkward with your hand model. Watch for chipped or cracked nail polish and make sure nails are clean and 100% presentable. If you’re working with a chef or line cook, make sure they don’t have food splattered on their coat cuffs if they’ll be in the shot and watch out for watches or jewelry that don’t look clean and gleaming. Or ones that just distract from the shot in general.

This may sound obvious, but when I first started shooting food, I set up a shot where I was dipping a strawberry in brie and I didn’t notice at all that my nail polish was very chipped. I gave it a quickie glance in the moment for composition and didn’t notice a thing, but when I went to edit it, it was seriously all I could focus on and I’m sure my audience would have felt the same way.

If this happens to you, you can definitely give it a go fixing it in Photoshop, but don’t pin your hopes on it. I tried for honestly forever to fix that nail polish snafu and it just made my finger look like I’d contracted a terribly horrible nail fungus! Nothing’s worse than having an otherwise perfect shot that you just can’t use for a preventable reason. Hands can be a big asset or a big downfall!

Tip #3: It’s Hard To Totally Repair Bad Lighting

I get it — sometimes you snap a pic under a heat lamp or you don’t snap a pic at all. While you can’t make every lighting situation perfect, you can make the most of the light you have. If you’re under the heat lamp, grab a couple of angles and make sure it’s not throwing super hard shadows (super hard to fix) or completely washing out the detail of your food (also super hard to fix). The photo below was taken under a heat lamp and I grabbed a lot of angles, corrected the color in my favorite photo editor, Snapseed, and turned up that brightness!

If you have a little wiggle room and can move the food around a bit, take it right to a window. There is absolutely no substitute in food photography for natural light. Make sure it’s not coming in too directly (deep shadows again), but natural light will just make your picture a million times more appealing and it will require way less editing. If you can’t? Know that’s your goal and shoot where you can! The picture below was taken in a banquet kitchen as these gorgeous arancinis were on their way out to tables.

That’s it for today’s tips and I’ll definitely be back with more soon!

Are there any food photography questions you’re struggling with? I’d love to hear in the comments!

Aug

2020

Make a Mindset Shift on Your Social

In this post I’m sharing my favorite takeaway from the first session of Social Media Marketing World’s Facebook Summit!

This week I’ve been so grateful to tune in to Social Media Marketing World’s Facebook Summit. Normally an in-person event, this year it — like so many other events — has gone completely virtual. This amazing line-up of the industry experts in Facebook is kind of like Christmas Day for a digital marketer and I had my headset ready and the volume cranked up the second the sessions opened!

They came out swinging with the first session with a presentation by Facebook’s Premier Marketing Expert Mari Smith. Mari shared a lot of great info that I can’t wait to cascade to my clients and start implementing in client strategy going forward, but one thing really stuck with me when it came to thinking about Facebook — “Make a mindset shift.”

It can be so easy to get a bit of a chip on your shoulder about Facebook’s reach and engagement. Especially those that experienced the halcyon days of incredible post reach without any kind of boost or advertising. Right now organic reach on Facebook pages is hovering at about 6% and that’s on the high end. I think this leaves a lot of people wondering if Facebook is even worth the time? Like, “I used to reach 10,000 no big deal and call that a Tuesday but now the only people who like my posts are my mom and my grandma?!”

She definitely talked strategy and what businesses can do to really maximize their presence on Facebook and these are tips I’d love to use to help you grow your business presence on Facebook, but the ultimate advice was to have a mindset shift about the platform as a whole. There are definitely things that can turn you off to Facebook — waaaay lower organic engagement, sometimes it becomes a negative space, it’s largely pay-to-play for businesses but, as Mari said, when else in history have we had such a targeted and direct way to reach our ideal customers? Shift your mindset from how it used to be to the amazing business tool it still is.

I’m not in any way promoting false positivity here, but I do think there’s something to the saying (not sure if it’s a saying actually, but let’s make it a thing 🙂 “what you expect to see is what you get.” Do you expect that Facebook is just going to be a waste of time? Or on a larger scale, do you expect that you’re too set in your ways to really learn social media? Or you do feel like social media is a chore and you dread finding something to post every day? Let’s mindset shift it — you are the #1 expert in how to connect with your customers and you can absolutely learn anything that’s in front of you. Social media is one more thing on your to do list, but it’s an amazing conduit to your customers too!

Is there anywhere in your social strategy you need a mindset shift? Dealing with negative reviews? Not wanting to learn one more platform? I’d love to hear in the comments!

Aug

2020

Mini Guide: Make Your iPhone Photos Stand Out on Social

I love my iPhone for shooting content for social media. It’s great in a lot of light situations, it’s quick and it’s easy. Here is my mini-guide for making your iPhone shots stand out on social! All of my example pictures below were shot on my iPhone 11 and edited in Lightroom/Snapseed.

I definitely rely on my DSLR for food photography shoots, but great photos come from the iPhone too. Big advantage there: if you’ve got a pocket, you’ve probably got your iPhone on you so it’s available for quick shots. It’s nimble, and you can grab a photo and go.

Here’s how to use your iPhone to grab great photos that really pop on social:

Research Your Shots Inspiration

The chances that you’re going to consistently think of an amazing shot just off the cuff are kinda slim.

If you consistently shoot food at your restaurant, spend time looking at food like yours. See what is a scroll stopper for you and what elements really catch your eye. That way when the moment strikes, you’ll have some fresh inspiration ready to go and you’ll know what’s a scroll stopper for you and shoot to that.

If you have some advance notice of what you want to promote — an amazing new outfit, a creme brulee feature or an upcoming event — search the hashtag of what you’re shooting and save those shots on Instagram (the little flag in the right hand corner at the bottom of the picture). Right before you shoot, pull up those saved photos and bring elements from your favorites into what you’re shooting.

Use Up That Natural Light

Especially when you’re shooting food, if you can get outside, get outside. If that’s not possible, shoot next to a big window, under an awning or even on a loading dock. Natural light just makes photos glow and if you can get it, use it!

Get Up Close & Personal

This is one of my favorite ways to get a new angle on an everyday item. Get up close, flip your phone upside down to get the camera focal point even closer and get down on your hands and knees if you need to.

A quick word on portrait mode — I know a lot of people really love to make this the default way they shoot and it definitely has its time and place, but I think you lose a lot of control when you shoot in that exclusively, especially for close up shots.

Shoot from ALL the Angles

The cool thing about photography is you just never know what you’re going to get until you get it. Get under the subject, get close to it or go for an aerial view. Get lots of different angles so you have lots of choices of what to post.

Edits Make Good Photos Great

As much as I love natural light, I also live in Illinois and so far the weather has never taken my personal preferences into account. Sometimes it’s cloudy and that’s the only time you have to shoot. Sometimes you have 30 seconds to shoot a weekly dinner special under a heat lamp before it goes out and you get what you get while the chefs give you the side eye.

I have a few favorite editing apps that are my go to. First, if you can find a great preset for Lightroom that matches your brand vibe, it will save you a ton of time getting a cohesive look without having to rely on a standard Instagram filter. I find all of my favorite presets on Etsy and most of my favorites have been $5 or less.

When a picture needs a little more attention (see the heat lamp example above), my go to is Snapseed. I think Lightroom and Snapseed are comparable with their editing capabilities, but I learned on Snapseed and I’m just faster on it, so go with what you’re comfortable with. In Snapseed you can adjust brightness, contrast, adjust highlights/shadows, sharpen and more. It’s like a handheld Photoshop.

That’s it! I hope these tips help you feel more confident when shooting content from your iPhone. Any challenges you’ve faced with getting great shots on your iPhone? I’d love to hear in the comments!

Aug

2020

Quick Guide to Scheduling to Instagram through Content Creator’s Studio

The Facebook Content Creator’s Studio is live and I’m here to share some easy tips to use this amazing free tool to schedule to your Instagram account through the desktop Creator’s Studio. Also check out my guide to using Content Creator’s Studio for Facebook Desktop.

Why Use This Tool As Your Instagram Scheduler?

When Content Creator’s Studio rolled out, scheduling to Instagram (for free) was the #1 thing I was excited about. I’ve been using Hopper for a while now, and while it was one of the few that could schedule photos or videos, it also came at a cost of $19 a month. I’d tried Tailwind’s free version and just found it (and their Pinterest scheduler tbh) not super user-friendly. This eliminates the need for a third party app as this is Facebook’s own tool.

The only drawback here is that you can only schedule to Instagram through the desktop dashboard, it’s not available on the app yet. I’ll be counting down the days for that to launch (and word on the street is that stories scheduling is not far behind!), but in the meantime, here is a step-by-step guide to using the Instagram scheduler through the Content Creator’s Studio desktop dashboard and a bonus quickie guide to the easiest way to move media between your phone and your computer.

Here’s a step by step guide to scheduling to Instagram:

Step 1: Head to Content Creator’s Studio (Desktop)

First, on desktop, head to https://business.facebook.com/creatorstudio/ or if you like to arrive at websites via Google search, just be warned that there are a TON of ads for this search query. A ton. Below is what you’re looking for:

Here’s a screenshot of your initial homescreen. If your Instagram and Facebook pages are already linked through the Instagram app, you’ll see both your Facebook and Instagram icons on top. If you manage multiple pages, you’ll see those in bubbles in the left hand corner and can toggle between accounts that way.

Step 2: Switch to the Instagram Dashboard

On the top of the screen, just hit the Instagram icon to switch to the Instagram dashboard.

You’ll know you’re on the right track when your dashboard header turns purple.

Step 3: Write a Post You Want to Schedule

Click on create a post and here you’ll have the option to schedule to your Instagram Feed or IGTV feed. Today I’m just reviewing an Instagram Feed post.

Add your caption and hashtags — they will auto populate as you start to type — at the top box and then click “add content” as you’ll see in the screenshot below. You can upload a photo or video from your computer (stay tuned to the end of the post for a quickie guide to easily moving photos to your computer from your phone). You can also click to auto share it to Facebook as well.

Side note: when time allows, I try to never post simultaneously. A ton of hashtags looks strange on Facebook and the voices are just different enough that you should always give your caption a once over and never just straight copy and paste from one to the other if you can help it.

Step 4: Schedule Your Post

Click the small arrow next to the publish button if you’d like to schedule vs. publish now.

Choose your date and time:

And click schedule!

Step 5: Double Checking Your Posts

This step definitely cannot be overstated as I mentioned in the Facebook Desktop Guide. Always give your posts another read aloud for grammar and spelling. In addition, go in AT LEAST once a week to make sure nothing has changed that affects your scheduled posts (closed an extra day, promotion ended early, you’re out of the special, etc.). This is so key in maintaining trust with your viewers that what you put on social media is timely and accurate.

From the home dashboard, choose the the arrow by post status to filter you posts by all, published, scheduled, drafts or archived. Here you can see all your schedule posts to review or edit.

Quickie Guide on Easily Moving Photos From Your Phone to Desktop:

I tried emailing images back and forth between my phone and computer and let me just tell you that is for the birds. My favorite tool to quickly and easily accomplish this is Dropbox. I used the free version until I needed more storage, but you can get a lot done with the free version. Simply drop things into your Dropbox on desktop and open them in the Dropbox app on your phone and save them to the camera roll. Or, add them from your camera roll to your Dropbox app and pull them onto your computer from the desktop version. Fast and easy and saves a ton of time!

Be sure to check out my Facebook Desktop Guide here and stay tuned for my Mobile App Guide Coming Soon!

Aug

2020

Quick Guide to Scheduling to Facebook Content Creator’s Studio, Facebook Desktop edition

The Facebook Content Creator’s Studio is live and I’m here to share some easy tips to use this amazing free tool to schedule to your Facebook account through the desktop Creator’s Studio.

As someone who’s big on scheduling (tip #1 of my 5 Tips to Social Media Success you can find here). I was beyond excited to hear that with Facebook’s Content Creator’s Studio you could schedule to BOTH Facebook and Instagram for free. I wanted to give you a step-by-step guide for both Facebook and Instagram because I’m someone who gets frustrated when it’s not 100% clear what to do. I’m breaking it out into three guides (Facebook Desktop Guide, Facebook Mobile App Guide and Instagram Desktop Guide –no Instagram Mobile Scheduling option as of yet) since it’s pretty screenshot heavy. But hopefully with these quick guides, you’ll be on your way to successful scheduling in no time. Check out my Instagram guide here.

First, Why Use This Tool At All?

I think it’s fair to say Facebook’s had a lot of ideas. Some good, some meh. Basically this desktop tool and app is a good one stop shop for creating and scheduling content and viewing all your created and scheduled content. For anyone who’s gone to schedule a post, only to be told to head to Publishing Tools at the very last step, this tool is for you. I’ll be digging in more to everything that’s offered here and following up with more posts on the most useful features.

Step 1: Head to Content Creator’s Studio (Desktop)

Step 2: Write a post

From your Facebook dashboard, you can write a post, story or go live. If you’d like to schedule a post, here’s where it gets just a bit tricky. You’ll act like you’d like to write a post (stories and lives can’t be scheduled at this time, but the word on the street is that story scheduling will be rolling out soon — I’m ready!)

If you’re ready to schedule from the dashboard, head to “post something”.

Add in your picture, video, poll, etc. as normal. This screen is super similar to the normal publisher.

Step 3: Get Ready to Schedule

When your post is ready to schedule, click the small arrow next to the publish button.

That button pops up an option to schedule, backdate it or save as a draft that you’ll see below.

Click schedule and you’ll see a box like below to set your date and time. Facebook lets you schedule quite a few months out, so you can really take a long-term approach to planning if that’s a good fit for you.

Step 5: Click Schedule button

Once you’ve set your date and time, click the schedule button.

Step 6: Review Your Scheduled Posts

This step definitely cannot be overstated. Always give your posts another read aloud for grammar and spelling. In addition, go in AT LEAST once a week to make sure nothing has changed that affects your scheduled posts (closed an extra day, promotion ended early, you’re out of the special, etc.). This is so key in maintaining trust with your viewers that what you put on social media is timely and accurate.

Two options to view your scheduled posts from the Dashboard. Option #1, is to head to the “scheduled posts” area in the lower righthand corner of the home screen.

Or head to Content Library in either of the spots pictured here:

There you’ll see a screen like this …

And just choose the “scheduled” tab at the top. and you’ll get a list of all your scheduled posts where you can click in, proof them, reschedule them or return them to a draft if necessary.

If you’re ready to roll on Instagram as well, check out my step by step scheduling guide here. Any other part of Content Creator’s Studio you’d like a step-by-step guide on, tell me in the comments!

carissa@spoonfulofeasy.com

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Step 1: Head to Content Creator’s Studio (Desktop)

Step 2: Switch to the Instagram Dashboard

Step 3: Write a Post You Want to Schedule

Step 4: Schedule Your Post

Step 5: Double Checking Your Posts

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Quick Guide to Scheduling to Facebook Content Creator’s Studio, Facebook Desktop edition

First, Why Use This Tool At All?

Step 1: Head to Content Creator’s Studio (Desktop)

Step 2: Write a post

Step 3: Get Ready to Schedule

Step 5: Click Schedule button

Step 6: Review Your Scheduled Posts

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