If you were getting ready to sell your home, you would take several steps to make sure you get the best response to your efforts. For example, cleaning up extraneous items that don’t go with the current layout. Organizing things in a fashion most appealing to the current expectations, and making sure you showcase everything with beautiful photography.

The same goes for your social media channels! While they do seem to be morphing into a fairly similar look and feel, each does have it’s particular setup requirements and content sections that should be given proper attention before delivering on your content strategy.

First, let’s discuss things that should be similar across channels for brand consistency:

1.    Your social media account name or “handle”. If you’re just getting started, it may be tough to find the same name across every social media channel. If you can’t snag your exact business name for yourself, you may need to get a little creative. A few options may be adding a number at the end (not ideal) or a “.” or ”-” in between words. If one channel is an outlier, simply keep as close to the brand name as possible. Another issue may be that your name is too long for the character requirements. Make sure to consider that across channels as well before you finalize the setup.

2.    Social Media Channel Images

    1. Your logo image: Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean your primary brand logo, but the logo image that you use across the social media landscape. In today’s world, most graphic designers will be aware that you need to have a few variations of your logo to ensure a proper fit to social media’s little square’s and circles that scroll by our newsfeed. Make sure to request this of them whether you are updating your design or creating a new one. A few things to keep in mind…
      • Written names vs logos: Quite often, a business will simply take an image of their company or personal name and place that into the logo space. The logo space may chop off a chunk of that copy to fit the required space. So, consider initials, a graphic representation of your logo, or a symbol used in alignment with your brand (a la Starbucks or the Nike Swoosh.)
      • Are you a personal brand? Now is the time to decide how you want to be recognized. Personally, I shifted from a company name to personal branding about a year ago, to more appropriately align with a speaking business and how I work with clients. Many people have a personal brand, yet promote their business with the logo image of themselves as the leader and recognition behind the company.
      • Sorry, Chic Magnifique but you showed up in my newsfeed and…

As they set the page up, it may seem to fit ok…

 

But in my newsfeed, here’s how it renders. Not very impactful.

 

The pink background of the woman’s head enlarged solely as the logo would stand out much more in the newsfeed.

2. Background images: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube all provide the opportunity for additional branding and impact through the use of a background image. To make things more difficult, their placement and size requirements are all slightly different. Consider how you can make a strong brand statement, and possibly use this space for a call to action. A few questions may have come up in the last section may be accommodated in balance with this background image.

      1. What if I don’t have the brand recognition of Starbucks or the Nike Swoosh? Well, if your best logo option for social media is a symbol, you can use the space of the background image to show the full name of your company, and more about your brand. This way, you have an appropriately sized image that presents strongly in the newsfeed, while tying your full name into context with other visual media.
      2. What if I am the face of my business, but I want to be sure my team is also recognized? In this case, if you’d like to use your personal headshot for the social media logo space, you could use the background image space to feature your team or ad clarity to the fact that there is a larger company behind the face of the brand. You can also use things like the Company Story to advance this knowledge as well.
      3. Consider getting creative and using this space for a call to action to drive leads, as Officeheads did here…

3.  Bio | About | Contact Information Make sure you complete all sections available to share about you, your brand and your company. In addition to ensuring your audience has clarity on your business, mission, and message, this is also an opportunity for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). It is easy for time to fly by and not realize you have an old phone number, email or broken link in one of your social channels.

      1. LinkedIn: Do a full sweep of your profile in edit mode, making sure to review your contact information, and complete your summary. And no, it should NOT be your old resume’s objective statement!
      2. Facebook: Complete everything in the ‘About’ section as well as the Story section, which will show up nicely on your front page with a fresh image.
      3. Twitter & Instagram: Not a lot of room on either of these, so devise an impactful, short statement with strong keywords. And don’t forget your website or other traffic driving URL.

So, just like you’d stage a home, stage your channels for a strong debut or re-launch. Plan a powerful visual statement and story that puts your brand image in a strong spotlight to make an impact. Have questions about how you should make this work for you? Drop me a message over at suekoch.com/contact