Ten things you must do now to set up ... your social media profile ...

Dear Mike,
As promised here is the first letter in the series on how to use social media to give your profile and business a boost - the ten things you must do now to establish your social media profile ...

1.     Be famous for thirty seconds. Establish what you want to be known for. What is it that makes YOU unique? Figure out your thirty-second elevator pitch and make sure it's no more than 50-100 words! Once done, modify and use this across all your social media channels (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.). And don’t forget your website and email footer. A simple message stated with intense frequency is the key to communication.

2.     Create a keyword strategy. Identify three keywords or phrases that encapsulate your thirty-second pitch. Consider what you do, and the phrases people are likely to use when searching for your products/services/brand. Make sure these appear across all your social media profiles and promotional channels. Pay particular attention to your LinkedIn profile, making sure your keywords frequently appear in the summary and profile section.

3.     Get yourself a good photograph. If you're creating a social media profile a good profile shot is essential. Make sure the lighting is right. A selfie in a dark room just won't cut it! If necessary get one done professionally on a day you feel good! To keep consistency of branding, ensure the same photo appears (in some form) on all of your social media platforms.

4.     Establish a mailing list strategy. Your contact list is one of your main social media assets. Start as you mean to go on and select a mailing list product such as Dotmailer or MailChimp to help you manage and maximise this. Build your list from you contact files, LinkedIn and more. It's also worth considering the aesthetics of any mailers as well as the content. Make sure this echoes your social media profiles.

5.     Become a blogger. A cost-effective marketing and communications tool blogs give you a voice. And, when used in conjunction with other marketing channels that voice can be heard. Combine the power of blogging, social and email to tell people what you are up to and what your new business is all about. However, make sure to be consistent with the frequency and issue of these blogs. Would monthly, bi-monthly or weekly work best for you?  As a rule, people want to know what you are up to so weekly works well.  But don’t overdo it. Become an email inbox habit. Later I’ll send you a letter with some top tips for bloggers. You write well, in reports, prose and poetry - out those skills to good use.

6.     Build your content authority. You have so much to offer, now is the time to get writing and share this with your audience. However, if you are going to be deploying content to help boost sales, it's vital to add a little strategy to the process. Figure out what you want to produce (blog posts, e-books articles) and what you want this to do for your business. Don't have time to create content yourself? Brief someone to write it for you! Or take down your ideas and translate into a blog.

7.     One asset, many products, many platforms. As well as sharing your content across different platforms, use your assets in as many ways as you can. A blog post can be used to create tweets, a LinkedIn post or a Facebook update. An email can form the basis of a Slideshare presentation or an ebook. One asset can become many products distributed over many platforms.

8.     Leave your mark. Make sure your fingerprints, footprints and photographs are widely distributed across all your social media platforms. You want to make it easy for people (and Google!) to find you. A simple message, shared with intense frequency using the same graphics across many platforms aids search.

9.   Accept we are all copywriters now. Make sure you know how to write (or have someone who can help you to write):
·             Headlines that hook
·             Paragraphs the punch
·             Content that kills

10.  Understand the importance of beacons, cascades and R(0)s. These, along with #hashtags, hooks, lists lures and landing pages (not to mention the development of a comprehensive LinkedIn and Twitter strategy) will help develop your social media following. More on this in the next letter! 

For now, concentrate on the basics. Get it up, and then get it right. The great thing about social media is that it doesn’t have to be perfect at the start. You can polish as you go!

John