An important part of your company’s online brand is having a presence on social media. These sites aren’t just for kids or family members, and businesses large and small have been using these sites to their advantage for a number of years. If you don’t have a social media profile on a few of the most-visited sites, then we can help you get started. And if you do have an account, but aren’t sure how to properly manage it, Online Potential can help you with that as well.
The Social Media Giants
There are hundreds of social media sites available for every niche and clique you can imagine. Your business doesn’t need to create a profile on all of them (that would probably be impossible), but you should choose 3-5 sites that will provide the best platform for your purposes. You want to give your consumers a place to find out more about your company, a platform that can help build connections while increasing brand awareness, and a way to learn about sales, promotions and other business events.
Facebook is the most-used social media site, so even if you aren’t a fan, your business needs to have a profile complete with contact information, cover photo, images and recent postings. While Facebook has a basic template on which all of this information is arranged, we can help you find images that fit the template size precisely. This will help you avoid cutting off your logo or using images that are hard to see at thumbnail size. And always include a picture, even if it’s just your company logo.
Be sure to fill out as much information on your profile as possible. A more complete profile is considered much more credible. Our social media management team can help you fill out your business profile so that your profile accurately reflects your business in a professional manner.
Facebook allows for text, videos and pictures to be posted, and the length of posts allowed is quite long. While this allows you to include a lot of info, most followers don’t continue reading if they have to click the “more” button. Hashtags can be used on Facebook.
Google+
While not exactly a leader in the social media world, Google+ still ranks as an important social media marketing feature. Because of the structure of Google, your Google+ profile can be linked to other Google features. Google+ also has a unique feature that allows you to completely control which of your followers can see certain information. By utilizing the grouping functions, you can rely on Google+ to communicate with employees, industry colleagues, associations and consumers all while controlling which posts, pictures and videos each group has access to.
Google+ allows for a large cover photo, and our designers can help make sure your photo is set to the correct ratio so you don’t have to crop the image. Posts can be up to 100,000 characters and may include hashtags.
Limited to 140 characters, tweets are little snippets of info that usually include a #hashtag to a bigger theme. Although many tweeters prefer to use language shortcuts, we recommend just shortening the message — it’s important that your tweets are still readable.
Twitter lets you upload a profile picture and a header image which we can customize to fit to the allotted space. Although the social media site began with just text posts, users can upload photos as well which can help tell your story in 140 characters or fewer.
Most businesses use Twitter for promotion, and one of the goals is to get followers to retweet your message. In order to do that, there needs to be enough room for the retweet to include RT @ (username). That can add quite a few characters, so really your tweet should only be as long as it has to be. The shorter the better, in the tweeting world, and the social media management team at Online Potential can create these quick quips for you or edit your tweets for the benefit of retweeting.
Known as the professional social media site, LinkedIn allows workers all over the world the opportunity to put their resume, portfolio and professional profiles online in one place. LinkedIn is a web-based place for networking, reaching out to industry professionals you want to know or would like to receive information from. Recruiting, networking, and building a clientele can all be accomplished through this site.
For your business, a LinkedIn profile can help establish credibility, recruit new employees, build a better brand in the eyes of other professionals, and network with other industry experts. We recommend filling out the extensive profile completely for a better experience, as well as uploading work-related photos and completing the products and service page. If you have a company logo, there is available space for it on your profile. If you don’t have one, our designers can create a logo for your business.
YouTube
Once considered a juvenile site for bloopers and amateur videographers, YouTube has expanded to become the go-to for instructional videos, tutorials, and so much more.
By creating a YouTube channel, you’re allowing followers to subscribe to videos that your business posts. This can include instructional videos of course, like training material or a DIY project tips video, but it can also be a way to connect with consumers. Some businesses showcase business events, conferences and trade shows while others make funny videos in order to thank clients or invite them to return. Whatever your niche, Online Potential can get your YouTube channel set up and show you how to upload videos.
Powerful Social Tools
No matter how many sites your business uses for social media profiles, you want each profile to stand out in its own way. Imagine your followers check out your Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram profiles daily. Are they seeing the same messages and photos? If so, it can get pretty static for your followers and chances are they will drop all of your profiles except one, whichever one they prefer out of the available group. We encourage our clients to change up their messages, run Facebook-only promotions, tell a joke on Twitter, and keep each profile unique. By doing so, we can help you build your consumer base and broaden your online brand.
Online Potential offers our clients in Orlando a comprehensive social media marketing package. We specialize in social media design as well as social media content creation and building a strategy to use these profiles to the advantage of your online marketing campaign. With search engine optimization and reputation management, social media profiles become another powerful marketing tool in your online arsenal.
