Businesses can participate in social media to find customers, engage, and connect

with them. To do that, a business needs to create a social media profile. You can
think of it as a businesses' virtual
storefront, so to speak. It's where customers get
a first impression of a business and learn more about what the
business has to offer. So, of course, you want to
make a good impression. By the end of this video, you will know the core components
that are part of such a presence, no matter which social
media channel you choose. Just as people create
a personal profiles, businesses can create
a profile as well. A social media profile for a business is typically
a page that holds all the information
and activity on the social media platform
for that business. While profiles differ a bit depending on the social
media site you choose, they typically consist
of five elements. We'll go over each one of
those in more depth later, but here they are: First, there's an account name, or
sometimes called a username. Second, a profile picture, and sometimes also a cover
photo. Then there's the business contact information, the website, physical
address,
hours of operation, and email or phone number. Fourth, there's typically
a description of what the business or the
brand does or offers. Finally, many profiles will
have a call-to-action; a button or a sentence
that lets people know what the business
would like them to do next. That could be shop, make a reservation, get more
information, and so on. Let's go over some simple tips that you should
keep in mind as you set up your social media accounts and start to build your
brand. Let's start with
the account name. Typically, it's one of
the first things people see when they encounter
your business online. It's important to choose
an account name that is memorable and can
easily be recognized. Take Barilla, for instance, it's a brand of
pasta and they use their brand name for
their Instagram account. It's how people know
them and recognize them. When choosing an account name, it can help to add a
keyword
that describes what you do. Including such a
keyword allows for your business to pop-up
irrelevant searches. Think about what people will
search for when they're looking for products
similar to what you offer, and consider adding a
keyword to reflect that. For instance, the
bakery Le Marais uses @LeMaraisBakery on
Twitter and Instagram. Adding Bakery makes it clear
what the business offers, and it makes it possible
for Le Marais to show up in searches for bakeries. You can also add a reference to
your location and your username; that could help if you want to attract more people
in your neighborhood, or if you want to
distinguish between stores in different locations. For instance, ice cream business
Hometown
Creamery's account name on Instagram is
@sfhometowncreamery, to show that they're based in
San Francisco, or West Elm, an American home goods
store added 'AUS' in their Instagram username
for their account that's related to their Australian
part of the business. Finally, try to be
consistent with your name choice across
your social media channels. This way, people can easily look for your business on
whatever
platform they're using. Even if the username
isn't exactly the same, think about a common factor
across all of your usernames. For instance, the
Italian non-profit, Food for Soul uses that
name on Facebook and uses @foodforsoul_it
on Instagram. Of course, naming options vary a bit from
channel to channel, and your preferred name
may not be available. But with these steps, I'm sure you can find a
name that works well. Another important
part of establishing your social media presence is choosing a profile picture
and a cover photo. These images allow
you to really make your account your own so it's important to
choose them well. Choose a picture that best represents your business
for your profile picture. Your logo is usually
your best choice. It's the way people
know and recognize you. Here's a selection of
profile pictures from different businesses on
different social media accounts. You can see that using a logo, immediately shows
who
this account belonged to. On many social media channels, you could also choose
a cover photo. That's the image that appears on the top of your page or account.
Choose an image that tells people something
about your business. Maybe it shows your products, a behind the scenes photo, a
reference to a current
ad campaign, and so on. On some platforms
like on Facebook, for instance, you can also add a short video
file as your cover. Note that it's easy to
change your cover image, so try to take advantage of that. You can use your cover
image to get a relevant message across, like in this Facebook
page, for instance, of one of my local
favorite restaurants. After adding your name, profile, and cover photo, you want to
add your contact information. Depending on your business, you may want to add
your physical address, your website, email,
or phone number, and maybe even opening hours. Just add all the information that
can help people
connect with you. Here's an example of a Facebook
page from the Boba Guys. You can find the address, phone number, websites,
and the opening hours. Everything you need to
get your bubble tea fix. You should also add a
description of your business, something that tells people
what you're all about. Here, you can talk about what product or
service you provide, and you can even
include something about the people
behind the business. Anything that will
give people good idea of what your business is
and what it stands for. Here's what the Boba Guys wrote about their business on
their Facebook page. They describe how they
grew up drinking milk tea, and how they are now offering tea made with organic
ingredients. Finally, on many channels, you can add a call-to-action
on your profile. A call-to-action or CTA, is a way to highlight
what you would like people to do after
seeing your profile. A typical call-to-action
would be, for instance, shop
now or learn more. Here's an example from
Terun, the pizza restaurant. They added a button to their
page that says "Order Food". Depending on the
channel you choose, you will see that there is more or less emphasis on
each of these five elements, but you'll find that as you build your social media
presence. Each of these will
matter at some point. In our next video, I'll show you how these elements feature
as you create
your Facebook page.