Quick Ways to Improve Your Social Media Profiles

By Chloe Smith

Social media changed the game, but many times small businesses are not utilising their social media profiles to their full advantage. Once small businesses get started with social media, they tend to keep their profile the same from the day they created them.

These six simple tips will help you quickly improve your social media profiles for you to rock social media.

Let’s start boosting your social media profiles to improve your business’s social presence:

1. Ensure You Only Have One Account on Each Social Media Network

When starting out, many times there could be more than one person working on your social media. Typically, duplicate pages are created. Do a quick search and make sure you only have one Facebook page, one Twitter account, one LinkedIn, one Instagram, etc.

You may think there’s no harm in having more than one account, but imagine if you are a customer searching for you online. Which account do you click on? Maybe you’ll think they are different companies by the same name.

Don’t confuse your customers. Make it easy for them. Have one account – whether active or inactive – on each platform.

2. Have the Same Name Across Social Media

When creating your social media profiles, make sure you use the same “name” or handle across all your platforms.

That being said, your handle on social may not be your exact business name. Like grabbing a domain, grabbing the right social media handle is getting harder and harder!

Ideally, you’ll be able to use your full company name but sometimes, especially if you don’t have a super unique name, you may need to add something to the front of your name or use an abbreviation. An example would be maybe Forty8Creates is taken, we could be F8C or Forty8 or TheForty8Creates on social.

Toy with your name and think of any nicknames your customers know you by — but keep your handle something people would think of when they think of you. When you come up with a social media handle, search it on all social networks to see if it’s available.

Grab your social handle on each social media network, even if you don’t intend to have profiles on all of them from the get-go (and we encourage you not to start on all social media networks at the same time). Creating your account ensures you get to have the same name, no matter when you start actively using the platform.

The bottom line is, you want the same name on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. This way your customers know how to search for you and find you.

3. Have the Same Profile Picture and Cover Photo on All Channels

Like having the same handle or “name”, you should have the same profile picture and cover photo across your profiles. We’re aiming for consistency within your social media.

For your profile image, we encourage you to use your company’s logo — sized properly for each specific network.

Your cover photo is another opportunity for you to display who your business is and to hone in on your branding. You could have your tagline, a recent ad image, a graphic from your website. The options are endless. The only recommendation is for it to reflect who your business is and your branding.

You can even take this up a notch and have a cover image available for your employees. For instance, all of the Forty8Creates’ team have the same cover photo on their LinkedIn profiles.

Having the same profile picture and cover photo everywhere makes you more visible to people. Seeing your same logo and image over and over in their feeds encourages people to recognize you and can help build brand awareness.

4. Fill out Your Social Media Profiles

Fill each of your profiles out completely! There’s no better way to improve your social media profiles than to have complete profiles. Go figure.

Each social media profile has different options available. Here are some of the top ones:

• Facebook: Your Facebook business page has a lot of business info including store hours, pricing, your website and customisable tabs. The tabs are highly customisable with you being able to add a newsletter sign up, your shop, services, offers and more.
• Instagram: Your business account on Instagram has 150 characters for the bio and one link – use this wisely. Your link doesn’t necessarily need to be your website.
• LinkedIn: An about section as an overview of who you are and then your company info has your website, headquarters, year founded, company type, company size, specialities and location can be found on LinkedIn.
• Twitter: Your Twitter profile has 160 characters in your bio with your location and a link.

Forty8Creates LinkedIn Profile

Though every platform allows you to have a varying level of information, we recommend having the same tone on each. If you can, use the same spiel about your company or incorporate the same tagline. Again, you want the consistency of who you are.

The more information you can provide, the better. A lot of your followers won’t reach out with questions but will look through your social media profiles or your website for answers. Try to make them easy to find.

5. Self-Promote Your Business by Connecting Your Social Media Profiles

A lot of social media networks allow you to cross promote.

Don’t be shy about sharing your other accounts!

Each of your social media networks should have a different view and different content, by linking them you help people find you on other platforms.

On Facebook, you can have tabs for your YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest accounts.

For example, History Bombs has linked their Instagram as well as their YouTube. Since they are a video-based business integrating YouTube is a great cross-promotion for them!

History Bombs Facebook profile

Forty8Creates has our Instagram and our Pins shown in our tabs on our Facebook, it’s another way for people to discover us on other social media platforms and get a snapshot of who we are.

6. Be Social

Everyone always looks at us like we’re crazy when we say this, but be social on social media.
It seems like an easy task to do and obvious but you’d be surprised when you look at your activity how often you’re not interacting with others.

It’s easy to become silent on social media.

A great way to improve the first impression of your social media is not only the look of it but also the activity on the account. Are you commenting on other people’s posts? Responding to comments (good and bad)?

Fast food businesses are great at this, especially on Twitter.

Wendy’s and Burger King’s tweets to followers

You don’t have to clap back at your followers like Wendy’s and Burger King does but you should be responding to mentions and interacting with your followers.

With these six, quick tips, you’re making your social media profiles stronger and improving your online presence.

Share your updated profiles with us @forty8Creates on any of your social media platforms.

Now you’ve got your profile squared away and you’re dipping your toe into different platforms, the next step would be to build a social media strategy.