Join me for a special edition of Mornings with Mayesh. With the help of some brave volunteers, I reviewed a select group of Instagram, website, and Facebook pages. If you've been looking for real-life social media examples for florists and floral businesses, then you don't want to miss this replay.

Scroll down for simple tips & tricks to increase your Instagram, Facebook and website game!
Here is the podcast replay, video, and show notes:

SHOW NOTES

INSTAGRAM, FACEBOOK & WEBSITE REVIEWS

• Tracy: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/woodlandfloraldesign/ 
  • Include where you are located in the description.
  • You have the email button, which is great!
  • You are using a combination of geo special hashtags and regular hashtags - good job!
  • I see a couple of responses to the comments on your posts. Try to respond a bit more to engage with your followers.
  • I don’t see any Story highlights
    1. are you using stories?
    2. maybe try creating stories around your events and use the highlights to show off your favorite work or work that you think will speak to your future potential clients.

• Erica: Website: www.luxealtars.com
  • Hi Erica, here are a few things that stick out.
    • Where are you located? I can’t find any indication on where you are at and this hurts your SEO
    • Your homepage is beautiful, but with the white draping at the backdrop for some of your white text, it makes reading your text quickly really difficult.
    • It looks like this is a new website that you are working on, but adding some content will be beneficial. Having a blog that you can write a summary of your events and post some pictures while including the details of where the event took place is a great way to help your SEO and help people find y our business.
    • The request quote page doesn’t have a form.

Chelsea: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/TopoftheHillDecor/ 

• Your link is for a Facebook page, not your own website. I think you are losing out on potential traffic to your site. Plus, you do not own Facebook or IG … they could disappear tomorrow and so would your digital footprint. It is essential for businesses to have a website. How do people order your amazing wreaths? Make it easy for them.
• I like that you provide all of the business button options - call, email, and directions. However, is the directions button going to your business? It appears that it is going to the city in which you are located. So I would be sure to update that immediately either with the correct address or remove that option.
• As with the previous review, are you using stories??
  Here’s a link to our blog about why you should be using stories and some tips to get started:
  1. https://www.mayesh.com/instagram-stories/
  2. This article is back from April and it was reported that there were 300 million daily active users for Instagram stories. I was able to find a report that says that in June, that number had already jumped to 400 million daily active users. If you are not on the Story train, jump up on it today!
     • https://www.statista.com/statistics/730315/instagram-stories-dau/

• Jennifer: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/huntressflorals/
  • You business IG page is great will all of the bio page features being used. By the way, it will take about a day and a half for me to drive there by car according to Google Maps!
  • Love your IG stories and highlights - this is such a great way to show off your business and have it been front and center when people head to your page.
  • You are also using a great combination of hashtags and reply to comments
  • You are doing so much right and are a great example for some of you who may be struggling with their IG game.
  • I think if you wanted to try to elevate your game a little more here are a couple of thoughts:
    1. Think of ways to engage with your audience a bit more with your regular posts. Instead of just a statement, ask a question like “what is your favorite flower in this design?” or “what you do think about what we found at the market today?”.
    2. Be sure to use call-to-actions in your stories, by adding a link and having them to “swipe up” to head to your website.
    3. And have you thought about having a landing page on your website just for IG. This is something that I plan on working on for Mayesh. I’ve seen others use programs like LinkTree, but you can easily create a page on your own website - people can still get to your article on  SD Voyager, but can also get to other vital places on the web for your biz.
• Whitney: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emeraldevv/
  • You’ve got all of the basics covered and you are using a business page - yay!
    1. Like Top of the Hill Decor, you have a directions button, but not a specific address, so I would turn that off or update it so there is a full address.
    2. For your email address, and I’ve seen this with a few others as well if you have a website that means you have a domain. I suggest having your email address with your domain, e.g. whitney@emeraldevv.com instead of using a Gmail account.
  • I like that you are asking people to head on over to your blog or website - keep on filling that funnel!
  • Think about having a collection of photos from the same event or within a certain color palette when creating your individual posts. It might help make a bigger impact when people scroll through your page. For example, grouping your daffodil pictures or your floral jewelry images.
• Tracy:
  • From Tracy: I just found your "Mornings with Mayesh" today and want to thank you so much! I love learning and love listening to all the advice from fellow florists! I am a "one-man show" wedding flower business in Chehalis, WA... I have more work than I can handle so I'm not really needing more business but just want to make sure my Instagram/Facebook, etc look professional.. My question is regarding Instagram... I am fairly new to it (about a year) and feel like I'm using the right hashtags but can't seem to get a respectable amount of followers! :) Any suggestions?
    https://www.instagram.com/memoriesinbloomchehalis/
    https://www.facebook.com/memoriesinbloomchehalis/ 
    http://www.memoriesbloom.com/
  • Bravo Tracy with your success - that is great! And don’t forget that having a great number of followers is lovely, that isn’t the point. You want to be able to connect with your community, develop relationships which in turn earns you trust, and generate leads for your business.
  • For your IG:
    1. Like a few of the others, nix the directions button if you aren’t using your full address.
  • Facebook:
    1. You have a few videos up, but no call to action within the video itself, just in the video description. For more video content, consider creating short highlight videos for each of your events.
    2. I highly recommend video and engaging content for Facebook and Instagram.
  • Website:
    1. Where’s your blog? Again, you don’t own Facebook or Instagram so you need a place that you can post your content to as well. If you are focused on brides, having a blog will also help build up your SEO so that the right brides find you. Also, when you post to Facebook about a wedding then you can link over to a blog post about it to keep driving people to your site.
    2. Having a contact form is great, but if you are in the wedding business I suggest creating a form that you can use to better qualify your contact from the start. Maybe you do that after the initial contact, but I think you could ask more here.
    3. From a purely aesthetic feel, I think your website could use a little facelift. I would consider moving to a different platform. For small businesses, I like SquareSpace. It is affordable, pretty easy to use to add your own content, and they have lots of modern layouts to choose from.

• Ann: Instagram: Annabellsgardenfloraldesign
  • My first piece of advice for you, Ann, is to post more consistently and by that, I mean at least once per day.
  • Try using some more geo-specific hashtags like #oregoncityflorist, #portlandsflorist #pacificnwwedding.
  • I see a graphic that looks like it was created for something else, not IG. When promoting something, try to create a graphic that fits the requirements for the platform and make sure that it isn’t fuzzy. If you need some help to DIY graphics, check out Canva. It’s a site that I use all of the time and comes with tons of layouts.
• Gaye: Instagram & website: www.tulipsandtwigs.com  https://www.instagram.com/tulipsandtwigs/
  • Instagram - here are 3 things that I would change:
    1. I don’t see any business features, so if you haven’t already I would switch that over. You just need a Facebook business page before you make the switch.
    2. Next, as with a few of the others, I would add where your business is located in the description.
    3. Incorporate Stories into your social media marketing mix.
  • Website:
    1. Overall, I think the site has a great look and is easy to navigate. Yay!
    2. In the little about section on the homepage, I would add where you are located. I see that you have the info at the very bottom, but it might be helpful here.
    3. I like your contact page that is qualifying your brides right from the start.
    4. Something that I love seeing on websites is a great branding video that allows your potential clients to get to know you in a powerful way.
       • Our newest design star, Shean Strong, has a great video that you can use as inspiration: https://youtu.be/WSdV40PdrT8
    5. For my last piece of advice … you know what I’m going to say, right?? Where’s your blog? You could easily turn each of your wedding highlights into a blog post adding some content to a short summary to beef up your SEO.

Resources/Links

• https://www.grammarly.com/
• https://www.canva.com/  
• https://www.mayesh.com/live-chat-streamlining-your-proposal-process/
• https://www.squarespace.com/
• https://wordpress.com/
• https://linktr.ee/