Social Media: Getting Started (Post 1 of a 5 Part Series)
Shortly after launching a new URvisible website, our clients often ask us how to get started with social media. It’s a logical next question, and our goal is to sign clients up for service with URvisible and continue provide useful, relevant tips for being successful online. We’re not just another website builder - our employees are an experienced group of internet marketing professionals that can really help build an online presence. We’d be lying if we said a URvisible website was the only key to online success. It’s not. Not even close. You have to work at building your “online presence”. We do provide you with a ridiculously simple platform (URvisible) to help get your business/message/idea/personal website online. However, from that point, our goal is to provide you with regular actionable updates here in our blog, on our YouTube/(with Vimeo coming soon) channel(s), or even with a new, value-added feature we add to the URvisible platform. Remember, these features are always added at no additional cost to you. So, back to social media, it’s all about testing and seeing what works best for you, your company or your brand’s individual needs. It’s can be a process that even gets frustrating at times, but it can also be fun.Â
Cue the motivational photo :)
I’m ready to get social. Where do I start?
There’s no perfect answer, honestly. It’s constantly evolving. If someone tells you they have all the answers to social media success, listen…then run and find another advisor. We’re dividing this into a 5-part blog post series for a reason. The breath and scope of this topic is huge. If we tried to cover everything at once, you’d likely get overwhelmed and give up. Even after we post entry #5 in this series, it definitely won’t be the last social media-related blog entry we post. There’s just so much to cover.
This first post will get you started. Posts 2, 3, 4 & 5 in the coming months will help you build on the starting point with tips to help you dive deeper using the social foundation you’ll build from advice in this post.
That was a heck of an intro…let’s (finally) get started. Well, not yet…first, a WARNING(!): Social media best practices change regularly. In fact, we’re probably creating a set of 5 posts about social media that could be obsolete in 6 months to a year. However, there are some “field notes”, so to speak, that can help you go from a relative social media newbie to a confident and regular social account updater…and in the end, it’s a lot of fun. It is essential for your brand or business to succeed online, but if you don’t think it is, you need to hire someone with the right attitude to do it for you. A good social media manager can really help you free up time to do other things your more passionate about. If doing it yourself is not for you and you want help, get in touch - we have some great partners that can assist.
If you’re ready for a challenge, great! Read on. You’ll gain experience in no time and in time, your updates will get better in their timing, frequency and message. Although you may never end up managing a $1,000,000 social marketing campaign for a major brand - hey, we don’t yet - these steps will help you establish the core social media accounts so you can start updating your own brand’s social channels. There are even tools that help automate the process.
1) Sign up for THE BIG 3 & customize your profile page(s) - Google My Business (or Google+ if you are marketing yourself), Facebook & Twitter - is always where we’d suggest starting. When signing up, try to get usernames that are the same across every social account to strengthen your branding. For example we are facebook.com/urvisible & twitter.com/urvisible where “urvisible” is our username.
Customize the profile pages with consistent branding once you set up each account. All 3 make this easy, but you will need size variations of your profile picture and “cover” photos. Luckily, the good folks at Buffer made a guide for that (along with some cool gifs like what’s seen above).
2) Choose a tool that allows you to post multiple updates to all of your social networks at once. We love BUFFER and HOOTSUITE for this very purpose. In addition, they both post great, regular updates in their blogs about, well, achieving success on social media. In the end, if you are a success using their platforms to manage your social accounts, you happily end up paying for their services on a monthly basis (like we gladly do)…and everyone wins.
3) Start updating! Finally, the fun part. Once again, there’s no perfect formula for success, but there are metrics and reporting built into both Buffer and Hootsuite to show you which of your posts get the most engagement. Follow other accounts that follow you back - and be careful of your ratio of followers to following. You don’t want to seem desperate. Include the links to your social media accounts on your website, email signature, blog, etc. Tell friends and colleagues. Post relevant photos with your social updates - they drive more engagement. You’ll quickly grow a nice network of followers across all accounts, and following others of interest to you will give you ideas for new posts. Finally, whether you choose to update daily, weekly, or monthly, check out Buffer’s “The Social Media Manager’s Daily, Weekly, Monthly Checklist”.
Once again, we’ll never pretend to know it all when it comes to social media management. There are a ton of free resources that cover much of what you’ll read in this post and what’s forthcoming in this series of 5. What we’re outlining here is an actionable social strategy that’s good for getting started. If you finish steps 1-3 above, don’t be afraid to search around and try something else.
See you next month for part 2! If you are just reading this for the first time and like our advice, the greatest way to thank us is to become a customer. Sign up at URvisible.com. There’s a FREE, no obligation 30 day trial built right into every new account.
In the meantime…
