Learn how this small business owner quickly developed the right Instagram Reels strategy for connecting with customers and landing sales.(image)
When I launched my kids’ spa party bus, Luxe Gather, in 2022, it felt especially challenging given my business is fairly niche and a new concept to many. I knew that building brand awareness would be critical and that showing off the party bus experience would be valuable to help parents get a tangible sense of what we offer.
Given these goals, building a strong Instagram presence felt like a natural fit. Most of our target audience is moms, who I know spend a lot of time on the social platform — 68 percent of U.S. moms use it daily. I also felt Instagram Reels would be the perfect way to show snippets of the party experience.
Ultimately, reels is just one piece of my social strategy and marketing funnel, but it’s created a critical foundation for brand awareness and education. Here’s how I quickly developed the right reels strategy for connecting with customers, how I streamline the process as a busy business owner, and how reels plays into converting customers.
I started with DIY customer research to fine-tune my messaging
Before I created a single Instagram Reel, I wanted to nail down the best way to message my business to catch the eye of my target audience. What do moms care about most when it comes to planning a birthday party for their daughters? What draws them to one party option versus another?
I had some ideas based on my own experience as a mom, but I wanted to hear the perspective of others, too. Unfortunately, like most business owners, I didn’t have the time to do extensive customer research.
So, I found a more roundabout, DIY approach: reading the reviews of similar businesses. Looking at spa buses in other markets as well as indirect competitors in my area of South Florida (e.g., other kids' party businesses), I compiled what actual moms were saying in their reviews.
By organizing these thoughts in Notion, I started to see common themes: how special their kids felt, how important cleanliness and customer service was, and how organized the experience was.
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Since launching the business, I’ve also reached out to our customers to ask for reviews or thoughts, and I feed this information back into my “voice of the customer” research.
This has since formed the foundation of a messaging document that I refer back to whenever I’m working on reels. By pulling content themes and copy directly from people who have enjoyed a business like mine, I can give my messaging a stronger chance of resonating with future customers.
I use templates and trending audio to easily make compelling reels
I knew from researching Instagram best practices that consistency is essential for building an audience and keeping engagement high, so I had a goal of posting two to three reels each week. Any small business owner knows that’s a lot of content to create on top of everything else on our plates. So, I found a few ways to make the job easier on myself.
First of all, I am always collecting content. Part of our party experience is that we take photos and videos of the kids throughout the event to send to the parents afterward. With the parents’ permission, I add all of this to a library of footage I can pull from when making reels.
This article will introduce you to the fediverse, key decentralized platforms, and some reasons to get started.(image)
If you’re anything like me, your Gen Z sister is posting on TikTok, your mom is a religious Facebooker, and you spent your (Millenial?) time context-switching between Instagram and LinkedIn.
You probably miss things that they share if they don’t make it to the family WhatsApp group (if you have one of those, thoughts and prayers).
But what if you could open your platform of choice and see it all there, in one place? Your mom’s Facebook photos and your sister’s TikToks, all while keeping up with your friends on Instagram and colleagues on LinkedIn.
This is exactly what the fediverse has the potential to be.
The fediverse, not to be confused with the multiverse (that’s Marvel) or the metaverse (let’s not go there), is a decentralized network of interconnected social platforms that promises greater privacy, customization, and community engagement.
Sounds pretty great, right?
Of course, that reality is probably unlikely, since major social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok aren’t part of the fediverse (and may never be).
But a growing number of new and interesting networks, like Bluesky and Mastodon, are also part of the network, and even Threads (owned by Facebook's parent company, Meta), is also plugging itself in. If nothing else, this is a sign that a version of the picture I’ve painted above will soon become a reality.
Of course, said picture is a bit of an oversimplification, and there’s a whole lot of nuance involved in the somewhat nebulous concept of the fediverse. What is it, actually? What networks are part of it? Why should you need to join, as a marketer or creator?
If you’re looking for answers to those questions, you’ve come to the right place. This article will introduce you to the fediverse, key platforms, and some reasons to get started.
What is the fediverse?
The fediverse (“federation” + “universe”) is an ecosystem of connected social media platforms. It works a lot like a federation — the different platforms operate independently but can communicate with each other, allowing users from one platform to interact with users on another with ease.
This is all made possible because fediverse platforms are (mostly) built with the ActivityPub protocol. At the risk of oversimplifying things, I like to think of this as a common language. While all the platforms have their own native language, they can speak and understand ActivityPub and interact with each other. ActivityPub makes them interoperable.
Other fediverse resources, like this handy guide by SimplyExplained, have compared the ActivityPub system to email: “There are many email providers out there like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo Mail. I can sign up for Gmail while you can sign up for Outlook and yet we’re still able to send each other emails. That’s because email servers speak the same language: they all use a standard protocol to communicate.”
Another important feature of the fediverse is that it’s decentralized. This means there is no one organization that owns or controls the entire network. This decentralized structure gives users more control over their data and online experience. No controlling organization means no need to make money in the traditional ways social media networks do — adverts.
What social networks are part of the fediverse?
There are a growing number of platforms plugging into the fediverse. Here’s an overview of some of the most popular ones:
Threads
Monthly active users (MAU): 150 million
(image)Source: engineering.fb.com
Instagram Threads is the first mainstream social media platform to join the fediverse, and Meta's entry is a strong signal that it’s here to stay.
Threads is a new social media platform that acts like Twitter and looks like Instagram, with a touch of Reddit thrown in for good measure. It’s primarily for “sharing text updates and joining public conversations,” Meta says, though it does support photos, videos, and GIFs.
Fediverse functionality is available in beta for U.S. Threads users now but will be rolled out more widely soon.
Mastodon has also emerged as a strong Twitter alternative, though the microblogging platform comes with a bit of a learning curve. Like the fediverse itself, Mastodon is also decentralized.
What makes Mastodon unique is the fact that there’s no one global “feed” that all public posts exist in. Mastodon users set up Mastodon instances, or servers, which others can join to share and interact with each other. Mastodon servers all have their own set of rules and requirements.
There are hashtags and lists, and you have up to 500 words to express yourself — as well as the ability to add GIFs, videos, and images.
Monthly active users: 1.4 million (with a reported 5.9 million accounts created)
(image)Source: bsky.app
Bluesky is a decentralized social network created by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. The microblogging platform is very similar to Twitter — you can share posts of up to 300 characters and include photos. Users can follow other users and reply, repost, and like posts.
Unsurprisingly, given its origin, Bluesky is the platform on this list that most closely resembles Twitter and is easy to get to grips with. Bluesky launched with an invite-only offering — users were only able to join if they had a single-use invite code shared by another user — but opened up to everyone in 2024.
It’s worth noting that Bluesky doesn’t use ActivityPub protocols (it has its own open-source version, AT Protocol, but can connect with other platforms via third-party services).
Monthly active users: 21,797 (with a reported 350K accounts created)
(image)Source: peer.tube
PeerTube is a video hosting platform designed to replace YouTube. Or, as PeerTube themselves put it, one that “allows you to create a video hosting website, or a ‘homemade YouTube.”
On PeerTube, developed by Framasoft, a French non-profit, videos aren’t uploaded to a single server as is the case with YouTube, Vimeo, and the like, but streamed peer-to-peer. Users can find content from different videos or channels via search, but there is no ranking algorithm that will surface content they may enjoy in a single place.
Pixelfed
Monthly active users: 20,769 (with a reported 245K accounts created)
(image)Source: pixelfed.org
Pixelfed is a decentralized photo-sharing platform that strongly resembles Instagram. It has likes, comments, direct messages, and even stories.
As is common for fediverse networks, users must join a server to start creating their own content on Pixelfed, all of which will have their own themes and rules.
BookWyrm: The fediverse’s answer to Goodreads, 2,593
Friendica: A bit like a simpler, decentralized Facebook, 1,751 MAU
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Buffer makes it easy: Cross-post on mainstream and fediverse platforms with a few clicks. Buffer supports Mastodon, Threads, and Bluesky (coming soon!)
Why join the fediverse as a brand or creator?
You’re probably eyeing the data above with skepticism. Why should you join a platform like Mastodon with under a million monthly active users, when Facebook and the like can offer you billions?
While those numbers provide useful context, remember the nature of the fediverse itself — most of these apps are already connected or soon will be. So, it’s best not to consider a single fediverse platform in isolation.
According to FediDB, a data hub managed by Pixelfed, ActivityPub platforms collectively boast over 11 million users — a number that grew by more than a million people from May to June 2024. This data doesn’t include Bluesky and Threads, as the former doesn’t use ActivityPub, and the latter is still rolling out connectivity.
In other words, the total number of users dipping their toes into fediverse waters is a lot higher.
I love how The Verge’s David Pierce framed this: “There’s no mainstream success story yet. Ultimately, it’s not important for there to be one fediverse app the size of Facebook because the fediverse can be the size of the internet. Every app just has to plug in, and it’s already humongous.”
More reasons to consider decentralized social networks:
Make forrays in niche communities: Servers, instances, tags — many of these fediverse platforms offer users the flexibility to carve out their own spaces for communities. If your target audience exists in one of these spaces, it makes sense to meet them where they are.
Community engagement: These more tightly knit communities lend themselves to stronger connections, m
In this guide, we’ve collected some ways to get started with content curation and to do so as efficiently and expertly as possible.(image)
Museums curate works of art. We marketers curate digital content.
Though our link shares may not be artistic contributions, the idea of curation is at least the same at museums and online: We’re all seeking only the best material to pass along to our patrons, customers, fans, or followers.
Finding and sharing exquisite content has never been more valuable. With the vast volume of content being shared every day, it’s harder than ever to sift through and find what’s most valuable to you.
People love being told what’s good to read or essential to see. Curators are the tastemakers of the modern creative landscape.
With that in mind, we’ve collected some ways to get started with content curation and to do so as efficiently and expertly as possible.
What is content curation?
Content curation is sorting through a large amount of web content to find the best, most meaningful bits and presenting these in an organized, valuable way.
Social media users are looking for a one-stop shop in a world of nearly infinite content – most social media platforms offer that. However, it is also helpful to note what content curation is not.
Content aggregation relies on automation, using algorithms to find content – it’s what the social platforms do. Content curation features handpicked content, often introduced with a snippet of copy from the curator. When performed correctly, content curation can add a lot of value.
Aggregation is algorithmic. Curation is handpicked.
The human element of curation is a huge source of its value. Algorithms can do a great job at surfacing stories that meet certain standards, but there will always be posts that fall through the cracks. Handpicked human collections can find content that might resonate outside of standard measuring tools, and the end product of a handpicked curation will always be unique.
4 benefits of content curation
Here are some of the significant benefits to a good content curation strategy. These benefits include:
You improve your relationship with the creators, publishers, and brands whose content you share.
You grow your authority on a subject (provided the curation is top-notch).
You add quality content to your site or timeline and create a great resource for others.
You save time by creating content yourself from scratch.
Examples of content curation
Content curation can work itself out in a number of different ways. Depending on your marketing focus and content strategy, one of these three curating methods—or multiple methods—could be a fit.
Curate content in a weekly blog post
You may be familiar with these link roundups. They’re simply posts that collect helpful resources from around the web on a given topic (the very definition of curation).
Curate content in an email newsletter
This is my preferred method of curation for Buffer’s newsletter. I put in the latest content from the blog, one trend from our social media manager to give our audience something actionable to take away, and three or four of the most relevant social media news of the week.
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Curation is big in the newsletter space. We’ve highlighted a few of our favorite newsletters before – Morning Brew, Lia Haberman to name a few, and they all incorporate content curation in one way or another.
Here’s an example of one from Substack newsletter, as seen on that highlights content from around the web as well as the other interesting links they’ve found elsewhere.
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Curate content on your social media profiles
On social media, curation is likely to be part of the mix of content you share. You’ll still post personal updates, brand mentions, and miscellaneous other content – curation would simply join the schedule.
Girl Power Marketing is a fantastic example of content curation done right on social media. Founder Annie-Mai Hodge pioneered the “social media updates” format, curating the top news of the week on social media from around the web in one-line snippets.
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How to curate content as efficiently and expertly as possible
If curating content is something you’d love to try for your marketing efforts, you’re likely wondering about the one big hurdle: time. How much time does quality content curation take?
Certainly, a time investment is involved in doing it right (as with most things done well). But don’t let this dissuade you from getting started. There are a number of resources, tools, and tricks that help make the curation process even easier. Here’s what’s involved.
Source content from unique places
Off-the-radar spots are often quite good – there’s content on those sites that your audience may not have seen before, which adds an immediate boost of credibility for you and a boost of value your readers.
Try a Google News search to see what current stories are bubbling up and might be of interest. Also, content aggregators like Alltop can be good resources for finding new types of content to read and share.
Of course, the social networks themselves can also be quality sources of content. Specifically, you can dig down into communities or advanced topic searches to find gems that are specific to the areas you want to target and curate. There are many ways to create swipe files in and out of social media to sort your ideas so you can revisit them when you need inspiration. Inside your email, you can filter the RSS feeds and newsletters into their own curation folders.
As you can see, there are a wide variety of sources. The big job is to narrow them down to what suits you and your audience best.
Read what you find
I can admit to being tempted to skim a story and share it – or skip the skimming altogether and jump straight to sharing! There’s just so much content to read and so little time.
However, there are some pitfalls to sharing without reading.
The story could be of far lower quality than you anticipated, which would reflect poorly on your tastes and opinions.
The story could have a misleading headline. It could take an entirely different angle than you expected.
The words, language, and visuals may not be in line with your brand standards or policies.
You might be asked to give your opinion on the article.
Many people view it as a shady practice or even dishonest.
Take the extra time to read the valuable posts you’ve saved. There are a handful of tools that make reading a bit quicker: read-it-later apps like Pocket or text to speech tools for the audio-inclined like Speechify.
Pick out your favorites
As you read, make note of the stories that really stood out to you and that you’d like to share. There are a number of different ways of organizing these, ranging from old-school to highly automated.
Use a content curation tool to store your best finds.
Compose your curation post or email as you find the content. Keep an ongoing draft.
Create a bookmark system. Use your browser’s built-in saving mechanism for a curated folder of content.
Automate your best finds with a simple workflow in Zapier
Share right away. Skip the saving step and go right to sharing (more on that below).
Depending on what you’ve decided for your curation strategy—blog posts, newsletters, social, something else, a combination—you can jump right in at this point. Sometimes, after searching for the right content and reading over it, sharing can be the easiest part.
Batch and schedule: The shortcut to social curation
If you choose to share your curation on social media (great idea!), you have a number of tools at your disposal and one neat time-saving trick: Batch and schedule.
I don’t know about you, but I find it hard to believe that I used to share all my content on social media one post at a time, direct from the native client, whenever I happened to be logged in. There are simpler, more efficient ways of doing things now.
Batch your curation
Set aside time in your schedule to search, find, read, and collect at once. I know I’m always quite tempted to dip in and out of my various curation sources like RSS and newsletters, but that’s never the quickest way.
Schedule time each day, every other day, or once a week. Then, sit down and do it all. Curating in real-time is seldom a good idea unless it meets a very specific need for your brand or strategy.
If you happen to come across a particularly fine piece of content outside your curation batch time, have some safeguards in place. Linda Dessau recommends emailing the link to yourself, adding it to a bookmarks folder, or using tools like Pocket or saved.io.
Schedule your curation
The potential pitfall of collecting all your shareable content at a set time is overwhelming your audience by sharing it all at once. Scheduling tools like Buffer were built to address this pain point. You can share great content whenever you want, regardless of when you discover it.
In our time on Threads, the Buffer team has picked up some patterns — here are our tried-and-tested strategies for growing your following on Instagram’s new platform. (image)
There's no doubt about it: Threads is here to stay. After a record-breaking start, Threads is fast proving that it was no fly-by-night fad but a force to be reckoned with among the other social media giants.
Threads by Instagram now has 150 million monthly active users and counting. To put that into perspective, that’s a little over a third of X’s (formerly Twitter) monthly active users of 550 million — and X has a good 16 years on Threads.
The platform bears a striking resemblance to X, but fans are quick to point out the community-building focus. Introducing a clever tags system — a bit like a marriage between hashtags and subreddits — and a host of handy new Threads features has been a catalyst for growth in recent months, with more to come.
Buffer users are big fans of the platform, too. Plenty of Bufferoos have become regular users of the tool, with a handful of teammates finding success (and community) in some niches.
Head of Communications and Content Hailley Griffis has loved connecting with other moms. Staff Product Manager Amanda Marochko has been growing a following by sharing more about how Buffer builds in public. Staff Product Manager and alt-rock musician Brandon Green has gained over 500 followers in just over a month on Threads — which is particularly impressive, considering he wasn’t active on Instagram and didn’t have a following he could migrate over.
Successful as it may be, Threads is still in its infancy, so it’s difficult to predict a guaranteed path to growth — though with social media algorithms constantly evolving, we can’t really say that about any social media platform!
Still, in our time on Threads, we’ve picked up some patterns. Plus, as we’ve seen with platforms like Instagram and, more recently, TikTok, growing a following early, before the space becomes too crowded, is often a little easier — so it’s worth investing in now.
In this article, I’ll share nine tips for doing exactly that. Here’s how to grow on Threads, with advice from Bufferoos doing just that.
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Threads scheduling is here! With Buffer's Threads integration, you can cross-post to other platforms, analyze your content performance, store all your ideas in a single hub, and so much more. Buffer for Threads is available on all plans, including free →
1. Let your other followers know you’re on Threads
The good news: When you first set up your Threads account, you probably won’t be at 0 followers for long. Your Instagram followers who are already on Threads will get a notification when you sign up and prompt to follow you — this is how both Hailley and I built up sizeable chunks of our Threads followings at the outset.
Unsurprisingly, Threads and Instagram integrate really well, so it’s easy to cross-post from one platform to the other. Tap the paper plane icon below any threads you post to share it to your Instagram Stories or straight to your feed.
Your content will appear over a Threads background like the one below (but note that any media you add won’t be automatically shared as a regular feed post).
Tapping on the thread in an Instagram Story will send your followers straight to your Threads feed, so if you’re looking to drive traffic there, Stories may be your best bet.
It’s worth letting your followers on other social platforms know they can find you on Threads, too — especially if you’re leaving those platforms to focus on Threads. Social Media Consultant Matt Navarra, a formerly avid tweeter, ditched X in favor of Threads several months back and ensured his X followers knew how to find him by amending his bio and handle.
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News you’re active on Threads doesn’t have to be quite as all-or-nothing, but the occasional tweet or LinkedIn post reminding people they can find you on Threads — and what you’ll be sharing there — can help grow your following.
2. Find your niche
Brandon has found particular success from “leaning hard into a niche,” he says. The beauty of Threads is that even the nich-est of niches are finding homes. For Brandon, that’s being a “music theory nerd with specific tastes, but also working in tech.”
In this article, discover 6 ideas to add to your Threads content strategy(image)
If there’s one thing you’ve heard about Threads, it’s probably that it’s an Instagram-X hybrid – which isn’t entirely accurate.
Yes, it’s very much “Instagram in text form” – you get a bit of the curation of your Instagram feed with the rawer nature of Instagram Stories mixed in with the format of content on X/Twitter. This makes it feel familiar but also sets it apart as its own thing.
But one thing about Threads is clear: it’s for having conversations.
Now, if you’re here, you were likely lurking slashdabbling on Threads but are ready to get a bit more strategic. So this is a list of some ideas for you to consider as you start crafting your content — with an important caveat. Less creating and crafting is required for Threads posts than, say, X or LinkedIn. Just thought it was worth mentioning.
Let's dive in and discover how you can make the most of Threads for your content strategy.
Introduce yourself or your brand
If you still haven’t posted on Threads, you’re in luck. The user base is genuine and loves authentic content.
So instead of worrying about making the “perfect first post”, start with something that gives people a peek at who you are, whether it’s a simple text, “Hello Threads!” or a request to connect with other folks.
Post by @buildyourwealthboss
View on Threads
Even better, use a hashtag relevant to your primary audience, like “Social Media Managers” or “Creators of Threads” for Buffer.
Threads will give you a neat little “First thread” badge at the top left of your post, and here’s an encouraging theory from @mattnavarra to motivate you to make those first few posts:
Post by @mattnavarra
View on Threads
Spark genuine engagement
The heavy focus on conversations gives you two main tasks on Threads: starting and participating.
Starting is easy if you have an established brand (personal or business) identity. This is evident in how brand accounts like Elmo and YouTube hopped into Threads and got right to posting.
Post by @youtubecreators
View on Threads
If you don’t, you might have more leeway to be creative and start from general conversations before narrowing down to niche ones as you find your audience or they find you. One way to start is to share real, personal stories followed up with a question – these consistently get high engagement.