Thursday 24 March 2016

Maintaining Your Social Media Profiles


After you have you social media profiles up and running, you may forget to pay attention to your profiles. It is easy to do as you are focused on posting, tweeting, and uploading videos. However, in order to maintain a positive image on social media networks a bit of maintenance is required. You need to make sure that you keep your social media profiles up to date at all times.
The social media profile is extremely important, so here are some things that you can do to make sure that you are getting the most out of your profile.
Adhere to Image Size Requirements
If your customer comes to your Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, or other social media page and sees a profile picture that is too large, too small, or out of focus, they are going to get a quick first impression that is not good. Most people will immediately think that if they cannot get their profile picture right, what else are they going to mess up? Make sure that you check the size requirements for each page and keep your photos at that size so they look their best and you make a good first impression.
Social Share Buttons
There is no real way to know the preference of our consumers for sharing content. For this reason, you want to make it as easy as possible for your consumers to share your content on whatever platform that they prefer. Use the buttons for the different social media sites so that if your customer likes Facebook they can share it there, if they want to pin an image to Pinterest, they can do so easily. Remember, you want them to share your information and in order for them to do this, you will need to make it as easy on them as possible.
Descriptions for Upcoming Events
When a person hears about your event on a social network it is important for them to know how to buy tickets or register. When you are creating descriptions for your event make sure that it is clear where the official registration for the event will occur.

Many users may click on the I’m going tab and not have any idea that they actually need to register for the event. Include easy to follow links when you are promoting your company events online.
Keywords
Despite what you may have heard, SEO is not dead and keywords are not a thing of the past. Social profiles are included in search engine results, which mean that your profile should include keyword rich text. The more that a keyword is used in your profile; the more likely you are going to be associated with that keyword on the social media platform. Make sure to use a keyword tool such as Google’s in order to make sure that your business is associated with the appropriate industry keywords.
Encourage Reviews
Remember, social media is all about engaging your consumers. You will want to make sure that you are encouraging your customers to leave reviews about their experiences with your business. They may leave reviews directly on your Facebook page or on other review sites such as Yelp or Urbanspoon.
Use Hashtags
Hashtags, phrases or words that are prefixed with the # symbol provide a way to group messages on social media sites. This is a great way to make your content or event stand out. Your hashtag can be anything from the name of your event to a special promotion to something simple. Make sure that your hashtag is descriptive so that it will keep your followers interested.
Be Real
As your social network communities begin to grow it is easy for your customers to begin to feel as though they have been lost in the crowd. One way to avoid having your consumer’s feel this way is to use their names when you are responding to their comments or questions.
Meta Descriptions and Title Tags
The title tag and Meta description of your blog or business needs to include your business name. If you do not include your name, a person that is searching for you may have difficulty finding you. For example, Whole Foods has a blog called Whole Story. This is a catchy title for their blog, but a person that is searching for it may have difficulty finding it as they do not know to search for that name.
To avoid these problems make sure that your company name is a part of the meta description and title tag for your blog so people that are searching for your business can find it easily.
Optimize Your Presence on Social Media
Just as you optimize your website for your business, you also need to optimize each of your social media sites. Businesses may add new social profiles at different times, which make it easy to create different profiles that are not cohesive.
It is important to make sure that your social media presence is optimized. If you are just starting out, focus on one social media outlet at a time. Facebook is typically one of the easier social media sites to set up. When you are ready to move on to one of the others, make sure that the information that you are providing is similar in style and format on all of the other platforms that you create.
Your bio’s and profiles should be kept up to date at all times. Make sure that you complete each of the profiles and clean them up as necessary. A clear and concise description of your business, your logo, and the URL of your website should always be included.
Put a regular housekeeping check on your calendar. Once a month or so make sure that you check all of your social media profiles to keep the logos, images, and information up to date.
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