When you meet someone new, what’s one of the first things you do? Shake their hand? Yes. Ask them about their job and hobbies? Probably. Look them up on the various social media platforms? Yeah, probably that too.
If you’re like me, you look up new acquaintances on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn to get a glimpse into who they are. Whether it’s a new coworker, babysitter, or date set-up, we all trust social media to give us an accurate depiction of people.
So why wouldn’t companies be treated the same way? News flash…they are!
When someone wants to know more about a company, or wants to submit feedback, they often move beyond the website to social media. That’s why it’s crucial that your company social media pages represent your organization in a positive, professional light. In order to optimize these profiles, I‘ve chosen a few best practices that should be easy to implement if your company is in need of a social media facelift.
1. Message consistency is king
You’ve probably heard a million times how important it is to keep your company message consistent. The same goes for your profile descriptions. Most social platforms allow for a long and short description, and some even more. Create three lengths of your company descriptions to use throughout social media pages, your website, award submissions, print collateral and other places where this information may exist.
Making sure each of your social media pages has a similar company description ensures that most people looking into your company will receive the same message. These descriptions should describe your value proposition as well as products and services. It’s also important that you include the same contact information. Make sure if you list your address, phone number and website on one social platform, you are also including each of these things on other social platforms.
In addition to consistency among profile descriptions, keep in mind your post content too. When posting across multiple channels, you want to have a similar message but should follow best practice guidelines for length of post, use of punctuation, voice, and time of posting. When I need help optimizing my post cross-channel, I refer to this awesome resource.
2. A picture is worth a thousand words
Have you ever been on a road trip and seen some Golden Arches in the distance? Your brand recognition skills probably told you that some crispy, salty fries were in your immediate future. Most people respond to logos they recognize over those they don’t. To my previous point, it is important to make sure each social page has a logo displayed at least once, but the more you can utilize your logo and other photos, the better.
Use photos that include employees in addition to your logo. Social media is for the people, after all. Showcase pictures that represent your company’s culture and make it a more personal experience for visitors. Including a consistent visual indicator such as a logo also helps people find you easily when searching for you across social platforms.
3. Keep it action-packed
This one is simple.
A call-to-action should appear at least once on your page. These should encourage people to visit your website, give you a call, request a quote, or do anything to keep them engaged with you. Don’t be afraid to throw a few of these out in a description or add optional buttons on social platforms that allow people to easily interact with your organization.
4. Spoon-feed your content
If you aren’t utilizing “Pinning” on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, you need to start right now! Pinning allows you to choose a post and “pin” it to the top of your social profile. This means that even as more recent posts show up, your top pin will remain the first post visitors see. This is an opportunity to highlight the most important thing you want page visitors to know within your content.
At Relationship One we like to pin industry updates, release updates, and company honors/awards. These show our visitors that we are a trustworthy source for industry news and lets people know that we’re a Best Place to Work. We’re hiring, BTW.
5. Show off your assets
It’s no secret that Facebook is the place to go if you want to show off your new car, new baby, or even, your Starbucks drink. Social Media is inherently a platform for boasting about you, which is perfect for companies to self-promote. Don’t be scared to talk about the awesome things your company does. Followers will accept some professional bragging, and your social platforms are the perfect place to do it!
You want followers to know what you do well, and social media allows you to get creative with it by adding images, writing shorter and wittier comments, and tagging others.
There are millions of “best practices” and opinions out there on how to set up the best social media page for your company. The bottom line is if you organize what content you want on each social page before posting it, optimizing the experience will be quick and seamless in the end.
If your organization is looking to excel and invest in social media marketing, you’re going to require tools that allow you to publish at scale, monitor inbound activities and measure engagement across the various social media channels that you participate in. Integrating the Oracle Social Relationship Management (SRM) platform into your marketing stack is the way to go! With this system you can efficiently and proactively participate on social media channels such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+. Schedule posts, engage with others, launch a quiz or game app, monitor your competition, follow hashtags, measure your performance – it’s all there.
Learn more about Oracle SRM and let me know if you have any questions!
What are you waiting for? Someone is probably Facebook-stalking your company as we speak.
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About the Author: Relationship One
