How many of you have social media profiles for your business? Have you spent any time reviewing them recently? How do they reflect on the brand of your business?
Do you know that there are still many businesses out there who set up social media profiles a long time ago but haven’t really looked at them since?
Ever since we started Concise way back in 2008, we have always had the same mantra – use a few channels well rather than loads of channels badly.
In our qualification City & Guilds Diploma in Digital Marketing, we have a scenario in which a business does a search for a potential supplier. This supplier has empty or very old content in their social media profiles. The question we pose is “What does this say about the supplier – how trustworthy are they?” Our suggested answer is that more research would be needed before starting work with the supplier – they might not be in business anymore – or they may just not have the time and skills to keep their profiles up to date. It isn’t helpful to make your potential customers have to do more work before contacting you though – it probably isn’t the best first introduction.
How do you ensure your business profiles appear trustworthy? I would suggest at a minimum:
- The social media profile picture should be a logo or professional photo of an individual (depending on the business/profile under discussion).
- The bio should be complete and explain the products and services offered.
- Accurate contact information or link to website included where possible.
- Ideally, the cover photo (that big image behind the profile picture) if one exists should be a branded image. This is a marketing space and you can change it regularly depending on the time of the year, products/services you are promoting, or offers you want to shout about.
- The social media profile should be active – not only post regularly but also reply to any comments. If you just post without replying, you can look like you are just a robot 😊
- Connections – you should be building up your follower numbers. A profile not followed by anybody is unlikely to appear trustworthy!
Want to take your social media profile one step further? I would encourage you to:
- Add branding elements to the images you post. This might be as simple as adding a logo or could take the form of creating posts around elements of your branding.
- Focus on sharing information that is useful or added value rather than information about you and your business.
- Use hashtags – where appropriate for the channel. This may involve posting separately to different channels. Instagram for example, can take up to 30 hashtags, this does not look right on Facebook posts.
- Identify and develop your brand voice to ensure consistency across posts and channels to ensure you identify with your target audience and correctly represent your brand.
- Your social media profile is how you appear to somebody when you are not in the room – don’t ignore the impression you can make.
If you need help with your online profiles, do get in touch or call on 07799 634835 or explore our social media content management packages.
