Welcome back for 2018,

If the early days of 2018 are anything to go by, we think that this is going to be the year of big changes for social media…

Some of you may not be aware, but recently Snapchat released a major update to their application which has sent Snapchat users minds spinning! Since their new redesign, 83% of App Store reviews have been negative (one or two stars). This has us thinking about social media’s future and predicting what other changes may lie ahead for us all in 2018…

Augmented reality is on the rise, so we can expect companies to take advantage of this unique type of branding and social promotion through the use of Instagram and Facebook Stories as well as Snapchat filters. Face filters and augmented reality will be a big trend in 2018, but we’ll just have to wait and see whether it is Snapchat or Instagram who will do augmented reality better…

Other potential changes that may come this year include the increase of Facebook Messenger and its connection with online stores. We started seeing this feature roll out last year with certain online stores and Paypal, but I think that this year we can be prepared to see a major roll out of Facebook Messenger notifications for online store purchases and postage tracking.

Finally, we think that Chatbots will also rise significantly this year. For those of you not sure what Chatbots are, they are a software application built to simulate human conversation. We’ve started seeing these in the form of auto-responses on Facebook Messenger but we can expect to see more and more of our chat conversations being with Chatbots during 2018.

What are your predictions for social media during 2018? We would love to hear them!

Until next month,

The Island Creative Crew.

Wow… How quickly time passes! Can you believe that 2017 is almost over? Neither can we! To celebrate the nearing end of 2017, we’ve decided to share with you some of this year’s most popular social media changes.

Facebook:

This year, Facebook undertook many different changes. They introduced updates to their algorithm which saw promoted posts help to maximise your business page reach and engagement. We also saw very slight updates occur in your News Feed on the Facebook app, and the roll out of Facebook Camera and Facebook Stories saw users being able to take a more personalised approach to sharing and live streaming content from their phones.

Instagram:

This year, Instagram changed the order of posts in your feed which left some people outraged and annoyed that posts no longer showed up in order of the time that they were originally posted. Now you see Instagram posts in order of your most frequently visited. Is this a good or a bad thing? You tell me! I think we’re all pretty used to it now. Instagram also made changes recently to its Stories, giving users the ability to add older content to their stories, superzoom and view stories from the desktop version of Instagram. Popular Stories features like polling, live video replay, adding user locations, adding website links, and hashtag stickers were also released this year. Finally, who can forget the addition of bookmarking posts and adding multiple images in a post? I know many businesses were happy with the addition to add more than one picture to their Business Posts, which has definitely proved to be one of the more popular features to be introduced in 2017.

Twitter:

Twitter canned its involvement with Periscope and Vine this year, resulting in their very own launch of in-app streaming, which is definitely a popular feature enjoyed by many today. Very early in the year, Twitter got rid of their Moments tab and introduced the Explore tab which combined Moments with their popular Trending feature. In June, they overhauled the aesthetic of their mobile app, making way for an easier to use and better designed experience. 2017 also saw Twitter take a tougher stance on online abuse in an effort to reduce violence and bullying. This meant that anything hateful or violent was automatically flagged for removal, and that Twitter began to act quicker with tweets that were reported.

If we missed an important new feature that appeared in 2017, we would love to hear it! Let us know what your favourite new feature of 2017 was/is…

Until next month,

The Island Creative Crew.

You might be a little confused about what we mean when we say sharing your business website on social media is important. It’s alright to be confused, we are here to explain it for you.

Every time you share your business website across your social media platforms, you create what is known as a “backlink”. Now a backlink is the term used to define the use of a URL hyperlink being shared from one web page (e.g. social media platforms) to another website (e.g. your website). Backlinks are very important as the more you have that point people to your website, the more popular it will be!

Shout Me Loud explain that backlinks are one of the MOST important aspects of SEO ranking. Put simply, backlinks make a huge impact on a website’s popularity in search engine results, like google.

You will often notice that in our social media posts (on Facebook and Instagram) that we share our website in the text section of our post (see picture, below).

What this does, is a number of things:

1. It provides a direct link to your website that your customers and potential customers can click on easily.

2. It provides you with more visibility in search results.

3. It helps your website become indexed quicker in search results.

4. It is one of the important and the most crucial aspect of SEO.

It really blows our mind the amount of times we see businesses on social media failing to use backlinks in their posts. It really is super easy to do and is one of the single most effective way to get your website noticed in Google rankings (or other search engines).

We can’t wait to see more people popping their website URL into their social media posts.

See you next month,

The Island Creative Crew.

You might have recently heard that Google is set to launch their new algorithm update which will change the way mobile-friendly websites appear in a Google search. Whilst the date for this update is still to be confirmed, there is currently a projected launch date of early 2018.

Right about now you might be asking yourself “How does this affect me and my website?”… Well, we are here to explain. Google is changing the way websites will appear when searched, which means your website will soon be ranked by the quality of its ability to be mobile-friendly. This will mean that if your website is mobile-friendly it will appear higher in a Google search when compared to a website that is desktop-only. This makes having a quality mobile-friendly website a priority for all website owners, and is more important than ever!

Knowing that Google will be rolling out these changes soon gives you the time to jump aboard preparing that your website is mobile-friendly, we have two top tips that…

- Get Mobile-Friendly Ensure that your website is responsive and can handle the different sized screens that your potential clients and customers are likely to access using their mobile phones, as well as desktop/laptop computers. If you would like to know if your website is mobile-friendly and ready to go, we recommend that you use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.

- Website Content

Make it short and to the point. Imagine having to scroll through your website using your phone? Is it easy to read? Is it nice and short? Is your layout clean, minimal and fresh? Being succinct and making sure you get your point quickly will help to make your website more mobile-friendly. It is also important to consider your theme or website background in relation to how fluid and smooth your website is to operate. Is it slow and clunky to use? Or is it smooth and quick? Google offer a free tool which will help you to work out what you need to focus on to improve the speed of your site, this is calledThink with Google. We recommend all of our clients to test their website out using this tool as it helps to explain why you might be losing potential clients/customers due to the amount of time it takes to load your website on their phones and provides you with tips on how you can fix it. Top tip: steer clear of pop-ups like newsletter sign-up boxes as Google will soon be penalising websites that feature these.

Please contact us should you require any further clarification about Google’s upcoming update, or if you need assistance with updating your website to make sure that it is friendly for mobile users to visit!

Until next month,

The Island Creative Crew.

You might have noticed that we have recently rebranded, and we are in absolute love over our new colour scheme! To go along with our new modern and sleek logo, we have recently redesigned our client proposals, website and are busily working on unveiling our new social media presence! We are interested to hear if you like our new branding? In this month’s blog, we’re hoping to explain why consistent branding is so important for your business.

How you put yourself out there can give you major edge with your competition... One of the major components of branding happens to be your logo, and what your logo looks like strongly impacts your business. Your branding is the first thing that a customer sees, so it is important that it reflects what your business is about, and it also needs to stand out enough to provide instant recognition for your customers and potential customers.

In today’s environment, branding is more important than ever… Think about popular brands like Facebook, Visa, Disney, Coke, Apple, and even McDonalds. What do they all have in common?

- Their branding is instantly recognisable.

- Everything is consistent and cohesive, from their logo to their website and even right down to their signage.

- It sets them apart from their competitors.

According to Australian Business, branding has the ability to impact upon your sales potential and profits. So, it is integral to your business that you stand out from the crowd… Customers and potential customers build trust and put their emotions behinds the products/services offered by your company and a major part of that is from your branding. The old saying “you should never judge a book by its cover” couldn’t be further from the truth when it comes to branding. So what does your brand say about you?

See you next month,

The Island Creative Crew.

Spam emails have been running rampant at the moment! We have been contacted a lot more recently, via email, expressing concern over potential scams. As a company, we are always here to support you and answer any questions you may have about the internet – including domain privacy! However, we also believe in the power of education and have some tips to provide you about any of your domain legitimacy concerns…

ScamWatch to understand more of what you should look out for.

- Know what a legitimate email is, and what is not. If your website is with us at The Island Creative, then generally we are also domain provider! So don’t panic when you get a fake invoice from a company emailing you for renewal – unless the email came directly from us at hello@theislandcreative.com.au, you can send it to the bin! If you host your own domain, please feel free to email us at any time to check the legitimy of any domain renewal emails.

Watch this super short (1 minute) video from Stevie’s Scam School from Consumer Affairs Victoria. I recommend watching it if you have a minute!