Social Media

Post something worthwhile and the comments can swallow your whole week. After a client asked how to keep that from happening, we laid out a different approach for each platform. Turn comments off on Nextdoor, leave them on for Facebook and Instagram where they boost your reach, and on Reddit, spend as much time commenting as posting.

Years of posts and thousands of followers, and none of that audience belongs to you. When Facebook changed its algorithm, businesses lost their organic reach almost overnight and had to pay to talk to their own followers. Here’s why your email list is the audience you actually own, and how to use social media to steer people onto it.

Written the day after the Northern Lights lit up skies around the world, this short note looks at how social media posts got neighbors and families outside to watch together. It’s a reminder of what social media can do at its best, and a nudge for businesses and non-profits to share real stories.

Business owners call us in a panic after losing access to their social media accounts, and recovery isn’t guaranteed. This checklist covers free steps to prevent that, from keeping ownership of your business accounts and turning on two-factor authentication to having two admins and never sharing a verification code.

Written during the 2024 election season, this post explains why Wild Iris advised clients to step back from NextDoor at the time. With little moderation, false claims and political arguments can take over a business’s posts and stay visible. It suggests moderated alternatives such as Facebook Groups, Reddit forums and local community websites.

Rainbows in June, pink in October, red, white and blue on the Fourth of July. This 2024 Tuesday Tip explains color washing, when a brand borrows a cause’s colors without actually supporting it, with examples from Pride Month and Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and why your business should back any cause it promotes.

Notes from a class we led for the Conifer Area Chamber of Commerce on how small businesses and non-profits can use social media to grow. The post itself is short and mainly links to the downloadable slides, which cover part of what we discussed in the room.

“Your page will be disabled.” In mid-2023 we saw a record number of fake Facebook warnings like this one, aimed at stealing accounts. This short post explains how to tell a scam from a real Meta notice, starting with one rule: don’t click links, sign in or fill out forms from the message.

Early 2023 rumors had business owners worried that Facebook and Instagram would start charging. The short answer was no. This post explains Meta Verified, the optional $12 to $15 monthly subscription Meta was testing at the time, what it offered, and why we couldn’t see a reason for clients to pay for it.

One well-researched piece can do a lot more than fill a single newsletter. This short 2022 post shows how to reuse the same topic as a newsletter, a blog post, a social media teaser, a forum post and a Chamber or industry newsletter article, and explains the difference between inbound and outbound marketing.