8 Social Media Profiles Your Business Must Have

Hello. Today I’m going to talk about some social profiles that your business must have. Now, even if you don’t actively use all of these on a regular basis, you definitely want to get these registered and actually many more besides as well because you want to get your business name secured on as many of those popular profiles as possible and even not so popular profiles, because one day, you don’t know, these might be the next big Facebook or Twitter. And if you’re not already registered, then someone can quite easily come along and take your profile name and either use it against you or just secure it so that you can’t have it. So, it’s definitely worth getting out there, securing as many profiles as possible, even if you’re not going to use them.

These are ones that I would secure and definitely use, especially the first few, and there’ll be some others on here that may or may not suit your business, but it’s definitely worth considering, if there’s a way that you can incorporate them into your social media strategy.

So the top one here is Facebook. Now, everybody knows Facebook. It’s got over one billion monthly active users. So it’s a massive social profile network, and it’s one that you really need to be on and you need to have a presence on. It’s best for B2C, but it’s increasingly being used more for B2B as well. So it’s definitely worth getting registered, setting up a profile page, making sure that it’s properly optimised, you’ve got images, you’ve got your company logo, a link to your website, all those things that people would expect to find. And you can even consider Facebook advertising as well, which is like paid search within Facebook, to promote your page, get more visitors, increase your fan base, and eventually get more traffic to your site.

So it’s definitely somewhere that you need to be on. If you’re not already, make sure you go and secure your name. If you haven’t already secured your name, chances are there’s someone who has, but try and get as many variations as you can and start interacting with it, building an audience and engaging with them.

Similarly, Twitter is growing daily as well. This is a little bit different to Facebook in the way that it works. On Facebook, obviously, you have to connect with people. Twitter you just sort of follow them, and you just read about their tweets. You don’t have to follow people back. You want to try and build a follower base here so that you’re sending out short and sharp messages, just to keep reinforcing your brand with your followers. Again, it’s is mainly B2C on Twitter at the moment, but you definitely want to have a presence even if you are B2B. Everybody, at the end of the day, has people that work for companies, whether they are the brand or not, and everybody is seeing these messages, and you want to get your message out to as many people as possible.

So get on there, secure your profile, again customise it with a custom background, with your logo, a link to your site, and make sure you’re tweeting regularly. The same with Facebook and all of these, you want to be posting regularly and frequently. Your users should know when to expect posts from you. They don’t want to see you go silent for a couple of months or even a couple of weeks. You need to be posting regularly and making sure that you keep the same voice and tone throughout so that they know what to expect from you.

The next one on this list is Google+. Now this is growing dramatically, and it’s in direct competition with Twitter, in terms of how many people use it. Not only is this great from a social profile point of view, from the point of view of current engagement with your users, but, in fact, it directly benefits you, from an SEO point of view, with your website. Now you might have started to see that when you search for your brand name or some brand names, you’ve got your search results on the left, and over on the right you’ve got people’s images of them and pages, and this is, in fact, their Google+ page appearing over on the right.

So that’s a massive extra advertising space for someone searching for your brand, and if you’re not on Goggle+, you’re not there, and you really want to engage that and make sure that your image and your brand is fully represented as much as it can be for those branded searches.

In addition, having a Google+ page, as I said, it directly benefits you from an SEO point of view. Google wants to see you on Google+, and if you’ve got a Google+ page, then it’s going to help you move up the rankings. So you definitely need to get on there. It’s a little but different in the way that it works to Facebook and Twitter, so it’s worth familiarising yourself with circles and +1’s and posts and how it all works. But it’s definitely worth getting on there. You should be using it regularly, and if you’re not, make sure that you go in, use it, and secure your brand name.

Next is YouTube. Now, this is obviously a massive, video network. This is used by millions of people every month, and if you’ve got any videos at all to do with your brand, you absolutely need to get on there and secure your name. You can create a profile, similar to the others. You can customise your page and the way that it looks, customise your channel, upload your videos, allow people to subscribe. If you’ve got any videos at all, it’s definitely worth getting them on there because you’re going to get more views and more exposure.

LinkedIn is very different to the others. It’s more B2B than B2C, and it’s really, really good for recruitment. So if you’re looking to recruit or you are a recruitment agency, or in fact you’re looking for a job, this is where you’ve got to be. But it also is a B2B. It’s definitely worth having a presence on there. People look to see what kind of company you are, who’s employed there. They might look at your employees to see the sorts of people you employ, and it’s important that you’re properly represented on LinkedIn. So get on there, secure your brand, and engage with people. Make sure you connect with people that are in your industry and just create that social presence on these important networks.

Pinterest is a little bit different again. This is an image sharing site. This is particularly good if you operate an ecommerce [site], especially if you’re selling things that people are likely to want to share. So things like clothes, big brands, big clothing brands use Pinterest really well to share images of their dresses, and then people, share them with each other and they talk about, what they want to buy. Shoes, things like that, jewellery, anything like that, that you’ve got some nice images on, you definitely want to be sharing, creating pins and pinboards on Pinterest for people to engage with and share links to your site, because that is going to bring in new traffic and potentially new sales. So that’s particularly good for ecommerce.

Next, we’ve got Quora. Now, this is a questions and answer site, and this is really kind of where you can get an edge on some of your competitors, because if they’re not using Quora, this is a really great chance for you to engage with your customers. Quora is where people post questions and post answers to other people’s questions. So you can go on there and have a look for questions that people are asking, that are relevant to your industry, and you could go on and answer them. You need to, obviously, register your brand on there, create a profile page so that people know who you are and what you’re answering for, and what you’re specialising in. But then you can engage with other people’s pages. You can ask your own questions, try and get other people to engage with you. And it’s all about building your brand name, building your engagement with your audience, and then eventually getting people through to your site through those profile pages. If you can build up a strong presence on Quora, you’re doing really well in terms of getting more social visits into your site, which is really, really important for SEO.

The last one on the list here is SlideShare. Different again to all of these. This is mainly for presentations. So if you are in an industry where you use presentations or you have PowerPoint slides that you would give at a presentation that you would want to share, this is perfect, because you can upload those presentations and share, via a link, to anyone who you want to see those presentations. It’s great for exposure. So you really want to get on there, secure your name and get any presentations that you’re happy to share with the public and anyone else that you share the link with, get them on there. It’s a great way to share your presentations and get your name out there.

So these are just eight profiles that I’ve looked into a bit more detail. But, as I’ve mentioned at the beginning, you want to get registered on as many as possible. You want to secure your brand name and get engaging. Social profiles and social presence is so important for SEO now as well, of course, as creating an image for your clients and your customers. You want them to trust you. You want them to understand you and hear your voice wherever they go. So make sure that you’re on these social profiles. Have a look at some others. There’s plenty out there. Make sure you’re registered and you’re engaging with them.

Thanks very much for watching my video. If you want to find out more about Koozai, please follow the links at the end of the video.