5 EASY ways to improve your business presence on Social Media
Social media. It is here to stay, so if you haven't optimised your business’s social media presence yet, now is the time to start.
There’s many advantages to building your brand on social media. It can help you improve your customer service, present yourself as a professional and trustworthy business, help you engage and grow your audience and drive traffic to your website.
Here are 5 EASY things you can do today to up your social media presence quickly and effectively.
Ensure your “Page Information” settings are up to date
This is often the first place a person will look when trying to get in touch with you or learn more about your business. Ensure your website link works correctly, and your contact information is current. Fill in as much information as possible including trading hours, location and pricing if applicable and include a great description about who you are and what you do. Utilise the “About” section by including a general description, a mission statement, company information, or your story with brief, yet descriptive copy. By doing this, your audience can get a sense of what your business represents before they decide to like it.
Use the same profile image on every network
Your brand logo or image should be consistent across every network. The more you appear the same in feeds across social media, the more likely people will remember you. Pick a profile picture that’s easy for your audience to recognise. If you're a brand, use a company logo or if you're a freelancer or consultant, a headshot of yourself.
Being recognisable is important to getting found and liked, especially on Facebook. It’s what shows up in search results, pictured at the top of your Facebook Page and also is the thumbnail image that is displayed next to your posts in people’s feed.
Also ensure the dimensions of the image are suited to the platform you are using. You want to make a professional first impression, and you won’t get that with half of your logo cut out from your profile picture!
This also goes for the cover photo of your profile. A cover great image should:
look good on both desktop AND mobile (basically, still looks okay when cropped)
be nice and clear visually (not blurry or have too many words)
give people a quick and crystal clear insight into what you do, and how you can help.
Utilise the “Pin Post” feature
Unlike regular posts, pinned posts stay in a fixed position on your page usually after your “about” information. They will be the first thing that people see when they click through to your page. Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn all support post pinning. It’s a great way to showcase your best work, share a key message, advertise a new landing page, or great before and after of a recent job you have done.
If you can sell yourself & your business’s key messages in that post, it’s likely to make them want to scroll further and find out more.
Build social trust
Ask for reviews, endorsements, and recommendations from your past and current clients. It’s as easy as sending a quick follow up email after you have completed work or a job.
Reach out and ask if they would mind popping a recommendation on your page. Send them a link directly to your page to make it easy for them! This is a great way to build trust with future customers.
Once they have left their review, make sure you reply to their feedback, it’s a great way to show them and prospective clients that you value their business.
Know when and how often to post to your page
Putting a post up on your business page is not just adding an eye catching picture and hitting post. You need to think about how often you post, and what time of the day. If you don’t post frequently enough, you won’t look as reliable or authentic - how much faith would you put in a brand that hasn’t updated its Facebook Page for several months?
On the other hand, if you post too often, people might get sick of having their feeds flooded with your content. Both of these will affect your post reach so getting the balance right is really important.
Did you know you can actually see when your audience is online the most? You can find this information in your “insights” tab on your facebook business page. It will give you a rough idea of what time of the day your audience is most active online, and will more likely see your posts.
A good rule of thumb for how often to post is around 3 times per week, but definitely no more than twice a day. When you create your posts on your business page, you can use the scheduler tool. You can also use programs like Hootsuite, Later or Loomly which you can schedule your content across all of your social platforms in one place. This will allow you to select a specific time and day to publish your posts. You can schedule as many posts ahead of time as you want, so set some time aside and put together your content to post automatically - this way you don’t need to make sure you're online at the same time as your audience to post!
Love the sound of this, but not the reality? Give us a call and we can get your social media packing the punches for your business.
If you are a small to medium trade or service based business Released is the Business Support Network for you. We love solving the administration overwhelm & providing strategic support and systems that work for you & your business. We maximise your return by building an ongoing relationship with you & your team and you get access to our entire team of experts at the click of a button.
Get in touch today to find out how we can set your business free.