Read This to Be off to a Good Start with Your Social Media Presence

As a business owner, you now need to be connected with your customers, prospects or simple visitors, it’s time consuming and it takes a lot of energy also but being able to talk directly to them is really priceless.

What social networks to subscribe on?

At the time I write these lines, there are 5 services that can really help your business, you can pick any of them, the more the better but remember that you need to be active on them so it’s more efficient to be on two social networks with at least one update every other days than to be on all of them with only one update once in a while.

• Twitter is in my opinion the strangest of them all but it’s also the one you need to be on the most mainly if you have no audience. Building an audience from scratch is easier on it compared to other networks. To create your profile, just fill your name, email & password and you’re in.
• Facebook can also hardly be ignored because of its broad audience, it’s the less niched social network and you can find almost everybody there: women, men, oldies, teens… Not just geeks & other tech-savvy people. If you’re engaged in B2C, it can’t be ignored
• You should not miss Google+ at least for SEO purposes & for your authorship. In terms of engagement, it’s good for artists & techy audience, you can then build a real community, outside of that it’s still hard.
• If you are recruiting or may recruit in the future, you should prepare and add your business on Linkedin. It’s also beneficial if your clients are other professionals.
• Pinterest is all about visual elements and can really help to spread them so if you generally have nice pictures or videos to share, then it’s a very good idea to be present there.

Prepare what you need before acting

1. Images
   First you need pictures, I’ll give you the different sizes. To edit them, you can use Pixlr Express, it’s free and largely enough for this, there is also the editor version which looks more like Photoshop, use it if you want but it may be more confusing with its many options & tools. Of course, if you have a budget, the best is to hire a designer.

   Let’s start with the avatar, you know it’s the small square picture that represents you or your business. Choose something that will “humanize” your business, it can be you, your team… Just remember that people don’t want to talk to a logo so it’s important. Choose a square image between 250 x 250 & 4000 x 4000 pixels, up to 4Mb max.

   You will also need a header image, timeline cover… It has many names depending on the network but it’s the same at the end, it’s a banner illustrating your page & at the top of it. Here are the sizes, it’s a little boring because it’s not uniform but no choice. Try to have them look different if possible, always with your branding of course.

   • Facebook: 851 x 315px
   • Twitter: 1252 x 626px
   • LinkedIn: 640 x 220px
   • Google+: 940 x 180px
   • Pinterest: None

   On Twitter you can also change the background, you have to provide a 2000 x 1200px image then, If you can have a big enough image, it’s really worth it as it brands your page and makes it look different from any other one.

2. Text
   Prepare a text file with all the info about your company: phone, address, email, website… This will make you save time as you’ll just need to copy & paste on all the networks you’ll subscribe on. Be sure to enter your website on every ones.
   You also need to prepare descriptions, make one for every networks, be concise and you may add your url at the end. On Google+, Facebook & LinkedIn, you can prepare a second & longer text about your company for the About section, no text limit on this one.

Important Steps when you start posting on your social networks

If you keep only one thing from this reading, it has to be the following list.

• Follow other pages & comment on their updates.
• Do not hesitate to tag specific people or pages when you add an update or comment something. BUT DO NOT SPAM THEM.
• Be human, people love to interact with other people, not with machines.
• Answer ALL comments & questions and encourage them, the more conversations happen on your pages, the better it is.
• Have your own style, do not hesitate to be funny if you feel.
• Be courteous, do not engage in heated conversations if you can avoid… If it’s on your page, remain the quieter you can but answer.
• Link your accounts from your website, you can also add sharing buttons on your articles.
• Be consistent in your postings, do not get discouraged, success will come in due time if you do things well.

I think that’s all, you’re ready to subscribe to the social networks of your choice now, just follow the links above & go on. Tell me in the comments if you need more help about this.

Image Credit: Ashley Ella Design, buy this icon set here.