Social Media tips from social media conference cymru
- heledd1
- Oct 5
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 13
The 3rd Social Media Conference Cymru was on my doorstep this year at the lovely Vale hotel, so it would have seemed rude not to make it a hat-trick, glad I made it....
Jessie Hallett opened the event, I'm a huge fan and fan-girled her at another event! Anyway I loved her talk, full of tips:
Go lo-fi, be authentic
'Behind the scenes' content working really well
Boring industry? you can still have fun e.g. dentists popping balloons went viral!
Regulated industry? you can't talk about CBD but you can build emotion through topics like mental health
Rage bait works really well (saying one thing but doing another e.g. this burger isn't messy)
Post on 'Trial Reels' (I'd not heard of this!) as well as Reels to reach new audiences and gain new followers
Scheduling content never gets as good results (they've extensively tested)
Shayoni Lynn FCIPR FPRCA talked about behavioural science and really getting to know your audience. ("Diagnose before you design")
She used a great case study to illustrate this....
with vaccines, most of the messaging was around safety/protection. They repositioned with a 'freedom' message with a group of young people in London = the vaccine uptake was so strong, they rolled it out across the UK
"What assumptions are you making about your audience that might be wrong?"
Tomos Grace from YouTube was a bit eye-opening for me as he said...
we've moved way past 'mobile' - it's now about the 'living room'
Obviously I know YouTube is huge but I hadn't appreciated how many people are using it to watch long-form content
e.g. as well as producing 2/3 min videos, how about 20 minute videos? Peopel are watching them!
So his tips were essentially 'Think globally' and 'Test long content'
I loved Danyele Higgins's talk about social media at the National Trust and having to balance legacy with new:
imagine having 1,500 social accounts to oversee!
Really get to know your audience, but also stakeholders too
"Freedom comes from communication"
They very rarely cross-post. Their audience on FB and LI prefer fact-heavy, long-form content whereas on IG and TT they lean into hooks/memes and trend-type content.. and scones!
They've struggled to get video to work on FB for their audience - their audience there love photos and will reply with photos!
Give yourself breathing room to create. "Less but better"
Star-struck to see LinkedIn legend Gus Bhandal after following him for a few years and he focused on LinkedIn company pages:
Good examples of brands on LinkedIn: innocent drinks Gymshark SURREAL and you'll see they're clearly targeting different audiences than their other social channels i.e. targeting relevant decision-makers etc
Engagement is key - comments are king, followed by likes then shares
Use your internal influencers and give them space to to spend time on it
From your company page, comment on others (think about who you want to influence on there) - not just any comment, a meaningful comment!
Carousels doing better than video they it tends to have higher dwell time.. which leads on to...
Being able to see how many saves and shares you get... create educational content that will get saved
'Behind the scenes' content is doing really well
A few other interesting talks:
Hannah Isted gave a great reminder on repurposing content - that one-off social media post could be re-used and re-purposed. Post more than you think you should. "Be 10% more annoying this week"
Hannah Peckham from Zero: Sustainable Money App talked about Sustainable Marketing and the amount of carbon that the we use creating content and posting on social - in particular using AI.
A top tip was to switch off AI overviews in Google to save carbon!
Dragon's Den star Lucie Macleod closed the day with her inspirational story of starting a multi-million pound business (Hair Syrup) from her parents' kitchen table.
How? A story = bad hair being transformed! The power of stories....
A great day, on my doorstep. Happy days!
Off to write a whole new social media strategy now.
If you need help with yours, give me a shout - a digital marketing power hour is a perfect place to start if you're stuck with starting out on social media, or coming up with new ideas.
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