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LaterCon 2020 – A Social Media Conference by Later

Later is a marketing platform for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. They focus on visual scheduling, media management, marketing, and analytics. Later hosted LaterCon2020 – A Free Social Media Conference by Later. The speakers and panelists shared social strategy advice, tips, and industry predictions for 2021.

My three favorite segments were:

• Natalie Chan (Instagram) and Kevin Fredericks (KevOnStage)
• Ashley Schroeder (Pinterest)
• Sara Synder (Youtube)

Kevin Fredericks aka “KevOnStage” is a comedian, author, filmmaker, podcaster developer, host, and much more. He spoke about his journey with Instagram. “KevOnStage” started the event off on a very positive note, he preached about how “it’s great to have followers, but it’s more important to have a community. People who like you for you.” I think that’s really awesome advice because people crave authenticity. I also appreciated how he emphasized that “It doesn’t need to be perfect to be posted.” I believe that usually handicaps creatives from taking the first step and getting their content out there. Kevin mentioned that “Even if it’s not perfect, you learn from it.” All creatives grow and develop their craft; a creator is always evolving. Everything is a learning experience.

Pinterest

Pinterest is one of my favorite apps to use for inspiration. I love that Pinterest is evolving for creators. Pinterest values creators and recognizes that without creators, there would be no Pinterest. Users want to connect with creators who teach them and expose them to new ideas and things. Pinterest doesn’t focus on chronological order posts, content will come up based on a user’s interests, engagement, and searches. This helps create a personal experience for Pinners.

Tips for Pinterest:

• Leverage audience insights to create Pins that appeal to your audience.
• Create fresh pins each week to keep your followers engaged.
• Claim your account’s domain to give you attribution on your Pins.
• Experiment! Make Pins in new verticals or try capitalizing on a rising trend.
• Promote yourself by cross-linking sites and adding the follow button to your website.

YouTube

The Youtube segment gave insight on how you could become a part of the Youtube community. The first step is to find your voice. In order to find your voice, one must answer the following questions:

• How would you like to have an impact?
• What do you want to say?
• What knowledge or experience can you share with others?
• Who are your favorite YouTube creators and what makes them memorable to you?

After you find your voice, it’s important to learn the formats Youtube has to offer. This helps to cater to users by exposing them to familiar context, but it could also help a creator develop their own idea! While continuing to plan content, you should make sure that you are following a consistent schedule. You want to make sure that your audience stays engaged and that you meet the expectations you’ve set for yourself. A person doesn’t have to post every day to stay relevant, you have to find what works for YOU and your content.

Hub, Help, Hero Content on YouTube

Hub, Help, Hero content categories are a great way to structure your content. Hub content is the content that you will be creating most frequently. This content entails exactly what appeals to your audience. Help content will be posted less than Hub content, but more than Hero content. Help content is the type of content that viewers can watch whenever and it’ll never get old. For example, this content could include tutorial videos. Hero content is posted rarely. An example of this type of content could be centered around events that are happening around the world and you could be voicing your opinion or raising awareness about it.

Being Authentic on YouTube

Another important factor in being a successful creator on YouTube is being authentic. It’s fairly easy to spot when a person is not being genuine. Creating genuine content and engaging with your audience is a must. A tip from Youtube on how to regularly engage with your audience is to encourage them to like, share, and leave comments and make their actions worth it by featuring comments, calling out fans, and building fan questions/suggestions into your content. Even starting traditions like creating a nickname for your supporters or a catchphrase which makes them feel like a member of the channel.

In order to get your content discovered, you should create a thumbnail that catches the viewer’s attention. It’s essential that you don’t create a thumbnail that raises false expectations. This tends to leave viewers, like myself, dissatisfied and not wanting to come back to your channel! “Click baiting” raises the question: are you doing it only for the views or are you trying to showcase your art?

Learning How to Analyze Your Performance on YouTube

Now you’ve done all of that, how will you be able to tell how your content is performing? Analytics. Youtube provides analytics that shows impressions, click-through-rate, watch time, & traffic sources. Watch time is the amount of time someone spends watching your video. I really like this feature a lot because it can help a creator know what to focus on if they’re lacking something or what they should continue doing in their videos. Lastly, traffic sources let you know how your content gets discovered. This includes what people search in order to get to your videos. This could help a creator with including keywords in their next video title.

Maximizing Your Reach on YouTube

Additional strategies to having a great YouTube channel include cross-promotion strategies. It’s always a good idea to link all of your social media accounts, in order to ensure that you are constantly gaining exposure. Tools like “swipe up” on Snapchat and Instagram are great ways to connect with non-Youtube audiences. Another good strategy could be to create a trailer for upcoming videos and posting it on all of your social media accounts.

All-in-all, one common theme throughout LaterCon 2020 was the emphasis on authenticity. Being genuine is a healthy way to always stay connected to your supporters and how you can bring them valuable content.

P.S. Click here to get 10 free social media posts using Later’s social media management tool.