Create a Personal Facebook Profile. (Unless you already have one) Create a Business Facebook Page

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1 5 super easy tips to get social asap! Social media can be a daunting frontier for business owners. Don t let it intimidate you! Here are 5 easy steps you can take immediately to tame the social media beast and use it to market your business! 1. Where to start? There are so many social media sites available out there so where do you start? The top four sites, based on overall interaction and highest search engine rankings are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Start by creating a profile on each of these sites: Create a Personal Facebook Profile (Unless you already have one) Create a Business Facebook Page (This will be linked to your personal page) Create a Twitter account (Your username should be your company name) Create a LinkedIn account (This will be your business profile with your name and company title) Create a YouTube account (If you have video content about your business) 2. Look, listen, learn! Watch and follow your competition and other top social media marketing leaders within your industry by becoming their friend or by setting reminders to check their pages every so often.

2 3. Customize your profiles. Once you have set up your profiles, decide whether you are willing to invest a few hundred bucks to customize your page(s) to entice and engage customers and prospects. We recommend doing this and PostcardMania can create custom designs for each of your social media profiles such as these for Facebook and Twitter: (Call for details) Customized Tab Cover Photo (850x320 pixels) Custom Apps Facebook allows you to have up to 12 custom apps on your page. You can rearrange the order of the apps to have your top 3 appear without having to click the dropdown box. However, you cannot rearrange the photos app, that will always remain the first app users see.

3 Create brief bio of company. Include link to website. Include other ways to connect. Use relevant hashtags in your tweets to help increaes visibility and followers Twitter allows you to upload a custom designed background image. Your background should somehow coordinate with your website and your overall brand. Include URLs to your other social media profiles to encourage followers to connect with you elsewhere. (Note: unlike Facebook, these URLs will not be clickable, so make sure they re short and easy to remember)

4 4. All set up, time to start talking! Start by posting new content at least once a week. Here are some ideas of things to post: New product announcements Specials, deals or discounts Articles or links to downloadable reports Links to media coverage Customer successes Company highlights Helpful tips and tricks Sweepstakes and give-a-ways These are just a few ideas to think with. When it comes to content, avoid coming off sales pitchy. Social media is an engagement tool; never expect people to respond to a, Buy My Product Now! type post, they will ignore you! Keep your ideal customer/prospect in mind. How would you want to be approached about purchasing your product or service? Be helpful and make sure to communicate how your product or service is beneficial. Discover the different etiquette for each social media site. You can do this by visiting profile pages, following other companies within your industry, reading articles on social media trends, etc. We recommend visiting often for real-time social media news and updates! Quick tip on Twitter etiquette: Twitter is definitely a more conversational site than others. Think of Twitter as a party and you are a guest. Would you walk right up to another guest and start pitching your product or service to them? No, you would introduce yourself, get to know them and maybe (casually) drop in a line about your product/service to see if they are a potential sale. Your tweets should mirror this situation. Post helpful links to articles relevant to your business or industry, ask questions, etc. Also, people LOVE answering questions, and talking about themselves. When you make yourself approachable, warm and REAL, you ll gain more followers! 5. Spread the word! Now that you have profiles and you are posting content, you can t stop there and expect people to flock to your pages. You need to let people know you re out there! A) Start by creating icons to add to your signature that link to your social media profiles, like this example. It s easy to set these up through your platform. Start by getting the icon images you want to use (you can find them through Google images or on the actual social media websites.) Social Media Icons

5 Here s an easy breakdown on how to make the icons link to your social media profiles. Insert a hyperlink into the image by right clicking on the icon and click Hyperlink Next, insert the website link/url of your social media profile into the Address field and click Ok Repeat these steps for each icon. Once you have hyperlinked all your images, follow the steps within your platform for editing your signature to insert the icons.

6 B) Add your profile URL s to your business cards and other promotional material. Social media profiles work in a similar way to that of your website; they re an outlet for customers and prospects to gain information about your business, so you should include them wherever possible. Here s an example of the proper format for promoting your social media URL s: (always use your Twitter handle which is your username with sign before it) Facebook: Facebook.com/postcardmania LinkedIn: LinkedIn.com/in/postcardmania YouTube: YouTube.com/postcardmania C) customers and prospects to announce your social media pages and ask them to Like or follow you. You can mention this within your e-newsletter or create a custom designed just about this. If you can offer something in exchange for them liking you this will get you even more followers. See example of this promotion to the right: D) Maximize your social media presence on your website. Facebook and Twitter have developed Social Plugins such as the Like button and the Tweet button. These plugins should be added to various pages and links on your website. This will increase your visibility on social media sites and increase your social media rankings. In the example below, whenever someone visits this page, they have the option to Like or Tweet the item associated with the plugin. After the visitor has clicked on either of these buttons, that item will show up on their Facebook and/or Twitter profile newsfeed. This allows their friends and followers to view the post, which links back to your website! These are just a few (upon many) tips to help get your social media marketing underway! Need assistance with creating your business profiles? PostcardMania can help! We create and design customized social media profiles for you and/or your business. Call one of our marketing consultants today at