How To Optimise Your Social Media Profiles and Why It Matters.
In today's digital age, having a social media presence is no longer an option for businesses; it's a requirement. But simply having a profile on various social media platforms won't guarantee success. To truly harness these sites' power and potential, you must optimise your social media profiles with your target audience in mind. Effective optimisation involves everything from choosing the right profile picture and cover photo to crafting the perfect bio and ensuring your content aligns with your brand message.
Taking these steps will help you stand out in a crowded space and will assist you in building a loyal following, improving engagement with your audience. Join Jane Hayes Consulting as we look at how you can optimise your social media profiles and get the most out of your presence.
Why It’s Important:
As technology advances and more people turn to social media as their primary source of information and communication, it's crucial to have an optimised social media profile. An optimised profile can help you stand out, build your brand, and engage with your audience. Investing time and effort into social media profile optimisation can provide you with countless benefits and help you achieve your desired goals.
Ensuring your profile is complete, professional, and up-to-date with accurate information increases your chances of attracting followers and potential customers. Additionally, an optimised profile can help you to establish relationships and network with other professionals in your industry. Adding to this, social platforms are now one of the primary sources of relationship management for businesses; they can often be the first point of call when a customer is researching a brand and so needs to be effectively linked, branded, and filled with up-to-date contact and business details.
What Should Your Profile Include:
· Your display name.
· Your relevant links.
· Your bio.
· Your location.
· A call to action.
1) Choose The Right Profile Picture And Cover Photo:
2) Be Consistent With Profile Names:
3) Complete Your Bio With Keywords:
4) Share Relevant Content And Engage With Your Audience:
5) Use The Right Hashtags:
6) Analyse Your Performance:
7) Set Your Privacy Settings:
8) Include Your Location:
9) Feature A Call To Action:
10) Ensure Links Work:
1) Choose The Right Profile Picture And Cover Photo:
A strong profile picture and cover photo are key. You want your profile picture to be a high-resolution image that captures your brand or personality and is formatted for the platform. Your cover photo should be eye-catching, informative and represent your brand in the best possible way.
On platforms like Instagram, where there is just one profile image, use your brand logo; on platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn, where there is the profile and banner image, use your logo as your primary image and an image that reflects your brand, personality and offering as the banner image. Profile images and logo placements help your brand look cohesive and can help develop a connection with your audience, as consistency can speak to trust.
2) Be Consistent With Profile Names:
It’s not always easy to use the same name across all platforms as some can be already taken, but it’s important to be as consistent as possible when creating social handles. By being consistent with your profile name, you make it easier for people to find and follow you, plus it helps to establish your online brand identity. Selecting vastly different handles across all chosen platforms can create confusion, make your brand presence hard to find, and create a lack of trust in a brand. It can also make your job as a business owner harder, as you’ll need to work harder to create awareness instead of continually building off one strong name.
3) Complete Your Bio With Keywords:
When we say this, we don’t mean pack your bio with so many keywords that your bios don’t make sense or seem too salesy; we mean highlight significant points, location, and business category, and give your audience an idea of who you are. When it comes to social media, your bio is one of the most important elements. It's not just a brief introduction about who you are or what you do; it's an opportunity to make a lasting first impression. So, how do you make the most of this prime real estate? The key is to complete your bio with keywords that are relevant to you.
This not only helps to optimise your profile for search engines, but it also helps to attract the right followers and connections. By including important keywords, you can communicate your expertise and unique value proposition concisely and impactfully. So, don't let your bio be an afterthought - take the time to craft a high-quality, keyword-rich biography that reflects your best version!
Above, asos includes a succinct Instagram bio, featuring clear cta’s, and links.
4) Share Relevant Content And Engage With Your Audience:
Don’t post for post's sake! Post content that connects to your brand and offering, assists and or communicates with your audience and reflects your brand personality. Talk to who you are and what your sell, and create content that works to resolve customer pain points. Look at crafting creative that encourages engagement – shares, comments, likes- that will lead an audience member to become a customer and stay engaged.
Keep an ear to the ground on what is trending content-wise and adapt as much as possible or engage an experienced digital marketer. Reply to dm’s and comments and share user-generated content; show your audience you care! Make the most of automation and feature answers to frequently asked questions in your inbox; if you doubt what to do, consider what you would expect from a brand.
5) Use The Right Hashtags:
With the growth of social media, hashtags are not guaranteed to create traction, but they can create a level of visibility. Hashtag strategies are a moving feast across all platforms, which makes it hard to keep up to date and keep or become visible. Our rule of thumb is to use a mix, including ones that speak to your business and or product category, personality, and a sprinkling of trending tags.
Currently, on Instagram, a small number of strategic hashtags are recommended, as too many can confuse the algorithm. No matter the platform, keep abreast of the trends to aid in growing your presence, not just for one but all platforms you feature on, as they all work slightly differently.
6) Analyse Your Performance:
It's not enough to just post content regularly; you also need to analyse your performance on social media to understand how your audience engages with your content. Doing so lets you make informed decisions about what content to post, when, and how to improve your social media strategy. Creating content without effective analysis can lead to wasted investments, which no brand can afford.
Conduct testing, create polls, listen to your audience, and try to feature all analytics in one location; this way, you can see the whole picture, not just part of it. You want to be able to see not only how your content is tracking and provide yourself and your team with the opportunity to course correct but gain a better understanding of how your social channels are feeding into your website and are these leads converting.
Social media analytics tools:
· Hootsuite.
· Sprout Social.
· Google Analytics.
· Website platforms such as
Wix.
7) Set Your Privacy Settings:
This point goes without saying, but it should still be double-checked. In creating a social media profile, your goal will be to create awareness, assist in sales and create connections. To make the most of your creative social endeavours, select the right privacy settings for your accounts to ensure your content and profiles are visible to your desired audience.
8) Include Your Location:
Include your location on your social profiles where possible. Doing so can assist in SEO and can increase the chance of your audience acting, i.e., going to your store and potentially making a purchase. Don’t make your audience and potential or existing customers work hard to find you.
9) Feature A Call To Action:
Encourage your audience members to take action on your profiles. This may be directing them to your website and e-commerce presence, your physical location, or just to know more about you. Feature a cta in your bio and in your content may they be paid or organic. Cta’s increase the likelihood of an audience member acting; not including one can leave some audience members confused about what step they should take next, which creates the risk that they will move on and not engage further, which could lose you a possible sale.
Make your call to action simple and easy to see, keep your tone light and conversational and use action words such as click here to download or sign up to our newsletter. Create a sense of urgency to increase the likelihood that they act in the moment and be sure that yours are faithful to your brand.
The New Yorker creates a clear CTA in their Instagram bio.
10) Ensure Links Work:
Social media platforms offer unparalleled opportunities to reach a massive audience and promote your brand or business. However, amidst the excitement of social media marketing, it's crucial not to overlook finer details, such as ensuring links work correctly. Broken links not only negatively affect user experience but can also result in decreased engagement rates and a lower ranking on search engines. Consistently put yourself in your audience's shoes and ensure that the brand experience is seamless; test links on phones and computers, especially if you’ve recently completed an update.
Jane Hayes Consulting, Leading You Through The Digital World:
Jane Hayes Consulting is an independent digital marketing agency founded to help businesses create consistent, creatively aligned, and strategic content. Jane Hayes Consulting can help you put your best foot forward with our expertly crafted team covering website design and building, marketing strategy, content creation, brand creation, and project management. We work within budget restraints and look toward the future. Need assistance in developing your digital strategy and creating a business advantage? Contact Jane Hayes Consulting today and sign up for our newsletter.