It’s time to become a social butterfly… or at least have someone in your company be that for you! Social media buzz is continuously humming in our ecosystem from personal interactions to business transactions. If you aren’t present on social media, consider yourself closed off from the easiest, most accessible way to reach out to consumers… that’s FREE to start!
Businesses can benefit from the multi-versatility social media platforms offer to spread the word about their brand, build popularity, increase positive reputations, showcase products and services, provide an outlet for customers to reach out, enhance community connections, and much more. First thing is first; it’s time for you to own your profiles!
Social Media Profiles
Before we get into how you can claim your profiles online, it’s important to understand the basics of how social media works, its function in connection to your business goals, and why it is more than important to begin immediately!
Social media was designed to create connections in the online world for individuals across the globe with others, including businesses. In more recent years, social media has accommodated the needs of business owners ranging from small mom and pop shops to Fortune 500 empires. Various tools have been developed to create an efficient process for social media managers needing resources for sales functions, post management, comment & interaction management and scheduling. So before you decide that social media sounds scary or too complex to figure out, know that social platforms have you in mind when it comes to how you can own your presence on their platform.
There are new platforms popping up to join each year. Our most noted ones to consider obtaining profiles on as a business are:
- TikTok
- Snapchat
- YouTube
- And more!
We recommend the ones above to begin with as they provide opportunities to grow your brand’s awareness through multidimensional tools that improve sales, generate leads, build rapport with customers, and so much more. However, when choosing which platform(s) to begin with, make sure you feel comfortable with their content structure and demand for accomplishing.
TikTok is all video all the time. Instagram is a multi-content hosting platform that allows you to create photo or graphic static posts as well as interactive videos and Reels. YouTube focuses on longer form videos, while Snapchat is narrowed down to 24-hour or less interactions on stories and personal messages.
Don’t let the details of each platform scare you as you begin. You landed on the right blog to get your business going on the right social media platforms with steps we’re going to cover next.
Claiming Your Profiles
First thing’s first… in order to access any social media platform, you have to create a profile. It is crucial that you make it clear for consumers to understand exactly who you are within the profile name or handle you create to lessen confusion and build a strong online reputation. While there may be profiles out there that have similar or same business names, do your best to create a profile name that is as exact and straightforward as possible relating to your business name.
Once you’ve claimed your profile, the below steps will help you understand how to grow, maintain, and boost your business’s online presence and connection with customers.
Account management
Owning social media profiles on a variety of social platforms is great, but only if they are then maintained to effectively interact with and grow your community. Creating a social media strategy, lining up content that makes sense for your business to share, interacting with followers who engage on posts and direct messages, and maintaining your page’s accuracy of information all fall under account management.
Posting consistently
When it comes to posting, your profile is your canvas to paint the most exquisite picture of your brand’s personality and image. Take into consideration the types of content you will post, the content rotation you will follow, subject of each post, copy, hashtags, profile tags, and calendar as a whole. Consistency is key to running a successful brand profile on social media. You get to decide what that looks like for you, but make sure it also hits all of the checkboxes for both your brand’s standards and platform best practices.
Engaging with your audience
The next part to owning your social profiles is to engage with your audience in a timely, consistent manner. Responding to direct messages, interacting with your audience, and keeping your followers engaged is extremely important. Without interactions from your brand to your audience, your profile is a dead fish in the water. Social media is about being social after all!
Streamlining business strategy with social media strategy
The final, debatably most important step to owning your social profiles, is to align what you are accomplishing with those profiles to your overall marketing and business strategies. Having a cohesive strategy flowing through your posts and interactions online creates a strength, rapport, and expertise level solid enough to brush away competitors from reaching your core demographic of brand advocates & consumers.
Using Social Media to Build your Reputation
Building a strong online reputation with the use of social media is fundamentally necessary in the era we reside in. While your business may have a strong word-of-mouth reputation, having an online reputation to match is even more important because so many people lean on the internet to make an informed decision on whether or not to utilize a business for their services in comparison to another.
By using techniques such as SEO best practices, specified hashtags, keywords, and social tagging of relevant products and or accounts, you can grow the spider web of information that pops up when someone inquires about your business or services that fall within your business’ wheelhouse at a local level on search engines such as Google.
Managing Your Online Reputation
As with any piece of the marketing pie, ongoing maintenance is required in order to sustain the viability and credibility of your brand, especially on social media. All eyes are on you when posting on social platforms. Whether your social profiles gain a substantial following or slowly grow, making sure you create and maintain a positive, truthful, and trustworthy image to your followers is crucial to your online reputation.
Now, we at Reputation Rhino understand that not everyone is going to mesh with your brand or find you to be their favorite. When this happens, negative content, comments, and reviews can follow for any reason. It is with this negative content that you can make or break your reputation. Handle any of it with poise, focus on the end goal, and the mindset to be a voice of reason, expertise, and assistance if deemed appropriate.
Owning your brand profiles on social media gives you the online window space to showcase your experience level, personality, creativity, and knowledge to any and all who follow your brand. A solid foundation is hard to bust through, so make sure you consider all of the pieces for claiming your social profiles, as well as how your presence on social media is a reputation builder when maintained properly!
Who To Reach Out To For Online Reputation Management
At Reputation Rhino, we help businesses build and maintain online reputations that outshine the competition while creating long-lasting relationships with customers on social media. Everything from helping claim social profiles, to building strong SEO driven content, and responding to customers, Reputation Rhino is the company to help achieve your social media and online reputation goals through our strategic approach to online reputation management.
Online reputation management encompasses a wide range of online brand management tools to boost a business’s reputation with the online community. Choosing a fast, efficient, and effective business that specializes in all of this will in turn increase your business’ likeness and trust levels with customers as well as boost your overall profits.
We believe every business must carefully curate their social profiles with the same intentionality as how they present themselves in person to customers day in and day out. This includes ensuring social media profiles are accurate and complete, proactively responding and conversing with followers, staying on top of reviews, and taking action to resolve or improve strategies to achieve marketing goals.
We are a solution-driven organization helping to increase visibility for businesses in a wide category of industries. We do this by effectively strategizing and implementing the best practices proven to produce optimal results through the steps and actions referred to above. If you are ready to build an exceptional social media presence, reach out to Reputation Rhino today for online reputation management services.