Savvy Social

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2021 Recap: Growth and the Unexpected

I’m so proud of what Savvy Social accomplished in 2021! I officially branded into Savvy Social at the end of 2019, and while 2020 was a year of throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks, 2021 has really helped cement what Savvy Social offers its clients and the potential growth we have for 2022.

Growth

At the beginning of the year, I made it a goal to host at least one workshop a month and although that goal changed halfway through the year I ended up doing 5 free workshops on Instagram and How To Create a Social Media Plan. This year we hit a huge revenue milestone and had two months with more than $10,000 in revenue. Not only did we experience growth with our clients, but also our team! We were able to hire our first intern (shout out to Riley!) who was an incredible asset, as well as our first team members. (Layla, Lewis, and Kelley you rock!) They have really helped take our client work to the next level. My goal for 2022 is to bring on someone either full-time or part-time and continue to welcome quarterly interns.

Live Events

Extremely unexpected this year, was the number of live events we executed social media for. Two large tennis events, including an ATP 250 – the San Diego Open, and World TeamTennis 2021 season. Both were amazing opportunities where we got to take over their social media platforms for two to three weeks and help these events come alive online. And what a success. The San Diego Open hosted a sold-out event, with social media growth most brands dream of. From zero to 3,000 followers in less than 2 weeks. While World TeamTennis made it on ESPN SportsCenter Top 10 twice thanks to strategically shared posts on Twitter.

Personal

This year I hired a business coach, who helped me finalize my services and prices into place. I learned how to properly price myself for the market and really see how much potential growth is still out there.

I also learned what type of client is NOT right for me and how to recognize those signs before signing a contract. Which speaking of, our contracts have also evolved a ton. As a freelancer or agency, I highly recommend including an indemnity clause and communication boundaries so you don’t get wrapped into daily meetings without providing an hourly rate for additional calls.

I continued to meet with a therapist at least every other month, and still strongly believe whether you are a business owner or not everyone should go to therapy.

Networking

In-person networking came back for 2021! And I was able to find an amazing weekly referral group through TEAM. Not only does this group focus on referrals for one another, but has helped me step into the role as a business owner and practice my 1-minute commercial on a weekly basis. If you have ever frozen when someone asked you what you do – you know what I mean.

2022 here we come!

Next year, I’m heading to another live event in January covering the PGA show for a client and definitely want to add live event coverage as one of our staples for 2022! As well as host our first paid workshop, focus on providing more one-off strategies and double our revenue. Thanks for following along and supporting my journey!

Cheers to 2022,

Amy Checho

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Top Three Instagram Scheduling Apps

When it comes to scheduling content for Instagram there are so many options it can become overwhelming! Depending on your needs here are the top three Instagram Schedulers I recommend – Planoly, Facebook Creator Studio, and The Preview App!

Planoly

Best for agencies and freelancers who work with multiple clients!

Planoly is one of my favorite Instagram schedulers to use for my clients. One of the biggest reasons I trust Planoly is because it is an official Instagram partner so I’m not concerned about any Instagram accounts being flagged for using it. I want to make sure the platforms I’m using for my clients’ accounts are approved by Facebook and Instagram since their Terms and Service are always being updated.

Another great feature of Planoly is that it allows you to plan out your Instagram grid before it goes live, you can drag and drop pictures, video, gifs and rearrange them in your desired grid. You can create draft folders of different content, create hashtag groups, and if you need your posts to be approved by a client or manager before they go live Planoly offers a Share feature that creates a link to the scheduled content! Auto-scheduling is an option for videos and one-post images (you do have to manually post stories and carousels, but you can schedule them and receive an alert on your phone for that time!) Planoly also gives you the option to auto-share each post to Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Another cool feature is being able to auto-post the first comment. This is useful for when you don’t want your hashtags to show up in your caption or want to share more about the post in that first comment. Also, if you need help managing comments, Planoly provides an easy-to-use social inbox to efficiently respond to your community!

From my research, I found that Planoly is one of the more affordable scheduling tools especially if you are running more than one Instagram account. For those that only have one account, Planoly is free and includes basic analytics. For more than one Instagram account and advanced analytics, pricing starts at $7 a month. You can access Planoly both on its app for Android and Apple as well as on your desktop. We use Planoly for five different Instagram accounts and pay $49 a month, which is much cheaper than most Instagram schedulers for multiple Instagram accounts!

Facebook Creator Studio

Best for non-profits or small businesses on a budget.

For those that might not need as many features, such as planning out your Instagram grid beforehand, or if you post a lot of the same content on both Facebook and Instagram then Facebook Creator Studio is a great option. Everyone with a Facebook page can access Creator Studio. For more information on Creator Studio check out Facebook’s FAQ.

You’ll need to confirm your Facebook Page is connected to Instagram to use the scheduling tools, but it allows you to auto-post pictures and carousels; most scheduler tools do not allow auto-posting more than one picture to Instagram! You’ll have access to Instagram’s basic analytics, a content calendar, and Brand Collab Manager. For each post, you can add hashtags, a location, and pictures. Plus it is free to use! You can access Creator Studio on your desktop.

The Preview App

Perfect for influencers and small business owners that focus on gorgeous imagery!

The Preview App is a newer scheduling tool, but I had a chance to use it for a year with a client and I loved the different features it offers. I would recommend Preview for someone who is super focused on creating an aesthetically pleasing Instagram grid and might not always know what to post! They offer multiple themed photo filter options which can create a gorgeous, influencer-worthy grid. They also offer similar features as Planoly like a content calendar, arranging your grid before posting, analytics, and scheduling posts. If you pay for the premium version, their caption finder offers thousands of caption ideas, quotes, suggestions, and more! Their hashtag finder is just as useful and contains handpicked hashtags based on different categories. Preview makes it effortless to plan your content quickly and in advance! They also offer the ability to add team members, another straightforward way to review posts before they go live.

Preview is free for one user and basic features. For the Premium Version, which has the caption and hashtag suggestions, it is $12.50 a month and you’ll have access to the desktop version instead of only the app!

Whatever Instagram scheduling tool you go with remember Instagram will always be updating and changing what its third-party apps have access to and they might eventually allow us to schedule directly from their app one day – hopefully!

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How we helped a small business pivot and go from $0 in sales to more than $6,000 in two weeks.

When California’s stay at home order was announced, I clearly remember a small local business on Instagram responding to a comment about how they would not be selling online during this time. The fan had asked how they could purchase products while this brick and mortar local business was going to be shut down. The answer astounded me; how could you not immediately go online during this time? Granted not every business can easily create an e-commerce site, but this business was less than 6 months old and sold home goods products. How could they afford to just shut their doors?

A few weeks ago I received a referral to help an event and wedding florist out of upstate New York. Due to COVID-19 cancellations all upcoming events and weddings had been either postponed or flat out cancelled causing sales to plummet to $0. So they decided to pivot. Not having done floral retail in about 10 years, the event and wedding florist decided to take this opportunity to offer bouquets and other gifts for Mother’s Day. I was contacted to connect Instagram Shopping to her website so customers could shop for Mother’s Day. Since a basic website had already been created, it was easy to add a variety of products to the SquareSpace commerce page. We were able to get products up on her site within 48 hours and connect Instagram shopping within 5 days (That Facebook approval process though!). She was able to not only offer her own designs and bouquets, but also partner with local businesses in her area to offer additional gifts for Mother’s Day like cupcakes and macaroons.

They sold more than $1,200 within the first 72 hours. A total of $6,500 within two weeks. All it took was a few beautiful pictures, the right customer need (hello Mother’s Day), and sharing it with followers. This pivot worked so well it was amazing to see the orders come in. The content descriptions under each product were not perfect and there were roadblocks in the beginning like checkout problems, setting up a Stripe account and making sure customers could specify what day they wanted porch pick-up or delivery. Yet it worked!

Small businesses are suffering the most during this COVID-19 pandemic and this is perfect example of how sometimes taking what you know and pivoting your business model slightly can make a huge difference in sales. In order for it to work, the customers must already be in your sales funnel and the need for your product has to be there, but being able to throw products up on an e-commerce site for sales can truly work! And if you don’t know how to do it yourself – hire us or Google it.