What Your Business' Social Media Pages Should and Shouldn't Have

Gone are the days of bench ads and classifieds in a newspaper. 

Today, businesses can harness the power of social media to not only reach audiences but actually interact with them, create brand loyalty, and facilitate the customer's journey. 

In fact, according to an eMarketer survey of 100 companies, 88% are using social media for marketing purposes, including:

• Micro-blogging (e.g. Twitter)
• Photo and video sharing
• Podcasting
• Ratings and reviews

Social media behaviour is already influencing a variety of other digital marketing trends. Consumers are expecting the features of social media interaction—the use of video, for example, the ability to have one-on-one conversations through messaging functions and using influencers to promote products and build relationships with audiences—to permeate across channels. 

For companies, this is beneficial because it means that getting your business’ social media pages off to the right start will set the stage for future interactions on other channels like your website.

As such, the real question becomes: Are businesses using their social media business networks and pages effectively? 

Here's what your social media business page should (and should not) include, and what you should avoid practising in order to make your social media presence and page align with your overall strategy. 

What Should Your Social Media Business Page Include?

In setting up your social media business page across any platform, the standard rules apply: Make sure to feature your contact information, website, and branded profile page loud and proud in the right areas. Populate any blurbs, bios, or summaries with compelling copy. 

But once you've got these basic details down, your business page should include the following. 

1) A mix of content types

Getting your content right is the first step to a successful social media business page. 

Every single update that you share or piece of content you create communicates your values and your brand's unique competitive advantage to your audience. 

According to the practices of “pull marketing,” these posts or updates are essentially interactions that are working to build trust and authenticity in your relationships with your customers, getting them closer and closer to a conversion. Failing to do so means that you risk losing that authentic connection to your audiences and you miss the mark on how you can serve them better. 

In order to make your business page stand out as well as appeal to your audiences, you'll need to use a mix of content types. 

Australian businesses are currently using Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as their preferential networks and, luckily, all three platforms support multiple content types. For best results, your business page should track which posts do well and what kinds of content and topics resonate most with your audiences.

Video, in particular, is making a major positive impact on users. When you're posting on your business page, you should be including a mix of these pieces of content, so you keep your page's feed varied and interesting. 

2) A consistent content posting schedule

Your business page should also include a consistent posting schedule and type. 

Some businesses choose to create a “social media calendar” and then post according to the day of the week. For example, Wednesday would be the day for a particular kind of post. 

Australian fitness brand and guru, Kayla Itsines varies her posts between external links to other sites, recipe posts, fitness video “how-to” content, client testimonials, and “before and after” shots, as well as brief promotions of her app. Her posting schedule on Facebook is anywhere between one to three instances or updates in a day, every day.

Regularly posting updates and content helps you create more engagement online and builds anticipation among your audience on social media in terms of what you’ll be posting next. 

3) Compelling calls-to-action

Whether you're tweeting, posting an article on LinkedIn or inviting fans of your Facebook business page to try out your products or services, your posts and updates should include a compelling call-to-action. 

Since Facebook, in particular, is exceptionally useful for advertising and list-building, thanks to its Ads Manager functionality, you should be including a strong call to action on every post you create. 

Whether it's to download an opt-in, click through to a landing page, read a blog post or simply share their thoughts on your update, your calls-to-action will help your audiences engage with your brand. This, in turn, can lead to more leads and conversions.

4) Audience-specific posts

Social media networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook allow you to target specific segments of audiences with specific posts through their back-end, built-in tools. 

These targeting options can be used for a specific campaign, but they can also be used in deciding which posts get “promoted” or “boosted” for which segments of audiences. 

Rather like your email list, your social media business pages allow you to tailor your content based on your audiences' specific preferences or past behaviours so that you're using your business page in a strategic way. This allows you to target specific sections of your market more effectively, increasing the likelihood of gaining more engagement online.

What Is Your Social Media Business Page Better Off Without?

1) Automated or fake interactions

Recently, a man, the owner of an Italian company known as Promo Salento was convicted of selling fake reviews to hundreds of businesses across Italy. He was fined €8,000 (around AUD13,000) and was sentenced to nine months in prison for fraud. 

Now if this doesn't convince you that fake interactions are a bad idea, perhaps the thought that your customers are equally as turned off by them will be. 

Audiences can always tell when interactions and conversations are fake or even automated. Consistency and authenticity in your social media voice matters.

2) Confrontational comments

One of the reasons brands and businesses stand to gain so much through social media is the opportunity to immediately follow up with and respond to their customers in real-time. 

But audiences do not take kindly to confrontational comments. And ignoring their issues is just as bad. 

While 40% will give businesses the benefit of the doubt if a brand ignores a social media complaint and try another channel of communication, a poor brand response will result in 50% of users completely boycotting the brand.

3) Inconsistently branded graphics

There are specific dimensions for graphics and photos that each social media platform accepts and is optimised for.

You want to make sure that your social media business page includes graphics that are not only sized to fit that platform's dimensions but that they also reflect your brand's specific colours, fonts, and style. 

Aim to streamline and visually connect all your social media business pages with the same graphic elements, regardless of post sizes. This helps bring a consistency and coherency to the visual look of your business page, building brand recognition over time. 

While your website is the unofficial “HQ” for your business online, consider your social media business pages as the spot you go to to connect with your audiences in real-time. It's the corner pub, the old watering hole, the town square. And if you use it right, you can build a loyal base that will follow you across the internet. 

Knowing what your business’ social media pages should and shouldn’t have is an important step towards social media marketing success that will not only lead to more leads or conversions but also help build a solid online presence for your brand.

In need of expert advice and assistance in digital marketing (and its various parts)? The hardworking bees of Curate Bee Digital are here for you! Contact us today and let us help you make your online presence more awesome!