Social 101 - tips and tricks to make social media work for your business

Heres a quick overview:

Action Items:

PLAN AHEAD

Set aside time to plan and create your content in advance.
- We love social media scheduling tools like Later.com.
Create a album on your phone/computer to organize your content, if you’re working with someone, share it!

Videos are the most engaging pieces of content on social media, and they can be shot from your phone.
- Short and sweet - under 15 seconds is greats, and encourages repeat views
- Catch them with a hook in the first 3 seconds - designed for sharing
- You don’t have to be on camera! POV, voice-overs and text overlays do very well

Social platforms prioritize when you post regularly, whether that’s every Tuesday and Friday or every day.
- Decide what amount of posting works for you and try to stick to a consistent schedule.
You can check your Insights > Followers to see when YOUR audience is most active
- When in doubt, test different posting times & types of content.

Posting videos to Instagram as Reels (or TikTok) is the best way to gain more impressions from people who are not following your business… yet!

Try to post at least one Reel a week
- It should be a vertical video, and even just 5-10 seconds long is great. What type of content do you think your followers would find valuable?
  - Unboxings, resetting a display table, new menu items, interviewing staff - or hop on a trendy post

Tag @downtownmanhattanbeach as a collaborator
- This allows us to post your Reel on our profile as well, that’s exposure to over 29K additional followers!
  - Tag > Tag People > Invite Collaborator

Instagram now supports and even favors a 3:4 aspect ratio (1080 × 1440 px) for feed posts.

This size better aligns with the vertical display of most smartphones and the updated layout of the profile grid. This is also the same ratio of your 8.5 x11” traditional flyers.

It will default to whatever size the image is in your camera roll, but you can always crop it.

SINGLE IMAGE

Great for striking visuals, brand/product highlights, or impactful photography.
- Best For: quick storytelling – one strong message, one strong visual.

MULTI IMAGE (CAROUSEL)

Higher engagement – Instagram favors carousels because they keep users swiping longer. Studies show carousels get more saves, comments, and shares than single posts.
Second chance in-feed – if a user doesn’t engage the first time, Instagram may resurface the post later showing a different slide.
- Best For: Before & afters, comparisons, transformations, Tutorials, how-to’s, or educational content, Product or menu highlights (“5 new items to try”), Event recaps or behind-the-scenes storytelling.

Add trending audio for a more engaging post!

Tag @downtownmanhattanbeach so we can share them!
UPDATE: You can now tag accounts in your stories after your post them as long as they are still live:

Create more branded stories
Save a transparent PNG file of your logo to your camera roll so you can create more branded stories.

boost engagement with interactive stories
Polls are a great way to boost engagement, ask people their favorite menu item, style of clothing, or even view of the pier!