Every Thursday, my friend the Instagram trainer Katya Willems and I do a Live on Instagram to help small businesses with their marketing.

Last week’s Live - about quick and easy marketing wins specifically during lockdown - was particularly good. I loved it and thought the vibe was really energetic and positive, and afterwards people popped into my and Katya’s DMs to say how much it had helped them.

Of course, for those of you who know how much I love recycling in life and in content, that means that Live is now getting turned into a blog post (which in turn will fuel posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and probably IGTV too).

In fact, this approach was one of the tips I shared during the Live.

Reduce, reuse and recycle the content you create

I don’t believe in creating content for the sake of it. Just because you’ve planned to do something, e.g. a blog post a week, please don’t just blindly create it. You’ve got to have something to say and you’ve got to have value to add to (your) people’s lives.

But when you do invest time or money into content creation, make that piece of content work hard for you. Change the format (e.g. from a blog post to an Instagram post) or take a Facebook video and turn it into a newsletter series.

A good way to do that retrospectively right now is to look at your analytics and identify the content that has performed well. Take that blog post with the most views and see if it can be chopped into smaller pieces for social media. Look at the Instagram post people engage with the most. Can you write a blog post or film an IGTV video about the same topic in more depth?

Use the data

When things are busy, many small business owners neglect looking at their social media and website analytics. This much-overlooked treasure trove can give you lots of helpful clues about how people engage with your content.

One thing to look out for is pages with high levels of traffic but which also have high bounce rates. This suggests people are interested in the content, but don’t stick around or explore your site further. Take a look at the page and see if you can work out why. Does it need more links to other pages on your site? Do the calls to action stand out enough and are they in the right place.

If you have an on-site search functionality and can see what things people search for, have a look at the search terms that get entered. Do people search for things (especially products) on your site which you don’t provide? Should you expand your offering to include those things?

Search yourself

Give yourself a Google (other search engines are available, but make sure you use incognito mode). Search using both your business name, perhaps your own name, and the kinds of things people might search when looking to solve the problems that you can solve (for example in my case I might use phrases such as ‘ethical marketing service’ or ‘marketing help Stockport’).

Can people find you easily? If not, you probably need to look at your SEO (my go-to for this is Paul Jardine, who runs excellent workshops on SEO for small businesses). If you do come up, how do you appear? Do your key messages come across clearly? Is your branding on point? How does your Google Business listing look? Is everything correct, up to date and relevant?

You can also use this opportunity to see what your competitors are up to. Don’t get sucked into comparison, and don’t copy others, but use what your competitors are doing to help inspire you and provide new ideas for your situation.

Home is where the action is

Does your website homepage make it very obvious what you can do for the person who ends up on it? Does it immediately explain your services or product offering, and does it reflect where you are right now with your business? Does it have up-to-date opening hours/delivery information?

It’s particularly important during the current situation that your homepage shows how you operate during the pandemic. Make it clear you are still taking orders or offering services, and indicate clearly what’s changed, for example if you offer only online consultations or if your delivery times have been affected.

Get social

In Good Marketing in Bad Times I say that now is not the time for social media distancing. People will be going to your profiles to look for information and to order from you, so look at them through the lens of your ideal audience.

Do you have a clear bio on each channel that explains what you’re about? Do your links point to the right places? How about your profile pictures and cover photos - can they do with an update?

I changed my Instagram profile picture on Sunday after realising the pic I’d been using is about 4 years old. I thought I’d do a post about the new picture, and it was remarkable how many people commented or DMed me to say they hadn’t thought about it but their pictures were also several years old. I also quite like a cover photo that has a seasonal element, especially for product-based businesses. How about photographing your products outside or using Canva or a photo-editing app to create an atmospheric photo featuring your seasonal bestsellers?

Bonus tips

Here are a couple of tips which I didn’t mention in the Live but meant to (those half hours go pretty quickly!).

1. Ask someone you to trust, but who isn’t overly familiar with your site, to perform specific tasks on your site. How straightforward is it for them to find a specific product? When they go to a landing page, do they click on the calls to action? Do they lose interest in the blogs?

2. Promote your newsletter. Whether you currently send out regular newsletters or not, it is always a good idea to grow your list so that when you have something to send out you have a healthy list. (By the way, here’s mine!)

Join us every Thursday at 12:30 BST as we help small businesses with their marketing over on Instagram! And be sure to check out Katya’s 5 tips from the Live too!