Five Very Important Social Media Tips
Some people underestimate how important it is to have the right profile picture representing your presence on any social media site. The little box that sits at the top left hand side of any Linked In/Twitter/Facebook or YouTube account is seen by your entire social media community, all the time. Not making the most out of this branding opportunity is not only foolish but could in fact be detrimental to your brand.
Make sure you have your logo or photo on your profile at all times. Seeing the little default egg on Twitter or the default shadow on Facebook as a profile picture – says not committed, not trustworthy and not bothered. When looking for people to follow on Twitter I assume that all the ‘egg’ profile users are not serious tweeters or haven’t been on their account since they set it up.
If you can be creative with your profile picture then go for it – with Twitter having over 300 million users, it really is a case of standing out from the crowd.
There are things you can do to put a quirky spin on a dull profile picture. The iphone has a lot of effects that can be used alongside the camera to jazz up any photo. ‘Toonpaint’, ‘Photoshop Express’ ‘Colour splash’ and ‘The juxtaposer’ create images would grab the attention of any dozy tweeter!
2. Content is King - make yours worth of sharing
Social Marketing channels such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs, YouTube and Forums (and many more that I won’t mention just now) are perfect vehicles for sharing content. However, now more than ever, what we share has never been more important. These channels provide excellent opportunities to share compelling content, content that helps others to want to know us, like us, trust us, share our message and ultimately do business with us.
So… we certainly shouldn’t be wasting the opportunity these far reaching channels provide by talking about the latest cheese sandwich we just ate. (Unless of course you’re Pret and it’s a tactic you’ve employed!).
Ask yourself…
- Have you got a strategy for regularly creating fresh and acceptable content?
- Have you got a blog that you regularly update for your business?
- Are you regularly creating videos for your business – how to videos, sharing FAQs, customer testimonials, new product and service features?
- Have you got any research info that others would be interested in?
- Are you an authority in a specific area – can you create ‘whitepapers’, industry reports etc?
Content is all around us – and so it’s a case of ensuring that you employ a mechanism for collating it and using it effectively.
3. Keep on top of your Twitter followings - keep them relevant
This is a quality over quantity message. It’s very easy to absently click that green follow button on tweeters – in the hope that they will follow you back and boost your ratings.
This is not a good strategy to follow, the term ‘quality over quantity’ could not be truer.
With most tweeters tweeting on average 15 times a day, that makes for a very busy Twitter feed if you follow the masses. It’s so easy to miss out on interesting conversations or good business leads if you’re following hundreds of people. Only follow tweeters that actually interest you or provide you with good content.
Cleaning out your Twitter account might feel like cleaning out your wardrobe – tiresome and time consuming. Fear not -
This is where Tweepi http://tweepi.com/ can seriously help you out. With this very easy and free (you can pay to upgrade) dashboard, amongst other things, you can view your followings/followers in a split second alongside some very helpful stats. Tweepi will tell you when that person last tweeted, if they are following you back, their klout score and how many followers they have. If you think they are worthy of your following then keep them, if not – flush them. Very simple!
4. Work out who your target audience is
Before diving in to social media you need to ask yourself a number of questions –One very important one being - What do we want to achieve with social media?
Different audiences respond to different approaches. You should be targeted in traditional marketing approaches – and this still stands online in the social platforms.
The beauty of social media platforms is that if you want to deliver online ads – then Linkedin and Facebook provide you with very granular demographics. You can really drill down to very specific audience criteria.
You can also target specific ‘Groups’ or ‘keywords’ to review conversations and nurture in a relevant and targeted way.
Social marketing – just as with traditional marketing should be targeted. Understand your audience, talk to them in a way that’s relevant to them, provide them with relevant and authentic offers, news, content, ideas and conversations.
You need to be clear on who your audience is – so you can target them effectively.
Also – remember the little saying… like attracts like. The ‘message’ that you put out is attractive to your audience and so it get’s shared by your target audience – most people have ‘friends or associates’ that are ‘likeminded’ so you grow your targeted audience in social way. (Hence why Groupon has been such a hit…for Groupon!).
5. Keep your ‘voice ‘ consistent across all your social media platforms
What you ‘say’ and the messages that you communicate need to be agreed as part of your planning. After all – this is your business, your brand. It’s irresponsible to just let communications run loose without any prior agreed planning.
As part of your social marketing planning you need to agree what should be talked about and shared, tone of voice used etc. These things are all key parts of communicating effectively. Resources allocated effectively – eg, if you are going to blog daily about xyz – then who is going to do it, sign it off, ensure it’s on brand etc before its shared.
Of course, what’s great about social marketing platforms is their transparency and authenticity – and when something is overly ‘manufactured’ – it’s very obvious. You can still have authentic and transparent conversations – but planning what the ‘theme’ of those conversations is – eradicates the ‘I’ve just had a cheese sandwich’ tweet, creeping into the corporate channel.
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Enjoy the post… Vikki
Vikki Mills is Social Media and Marketing Executive at Carvill Creative – the online visibility experts. A digital marketing and design agency based in Maidenhead, Berkshire. The agency covers all aspects of online visibility – covering social media marketing and social media training, user focused website planning and conversion focused website design.
For marketing and social media advice – view the Carvill Creative Blog