Do you have a Twitter account with a decent following? Do you use Twitter to build awareness around you and your brand (even if you are the brand)? If you answered yes to any of these then you may want to think about getting your Twitter account verified.
The main benefit is that blue verified badge on Twitter lets people know that an account of public interest is authentic. The last thing you want is for a copycat account to turn up and pretend to be you!
Here’s how you get your account verified:
First thing to do is complete all of the personal information about you and details like profile picture, cover photo, name, website and your bio.
Second is to verify or add your mobile phone number and the confirmation of your email address. In order to verify the phone number, you are going to enter the verification code that has been sent by Twitter in your email. While in email address, you will just going to click the link that Twitter provided in your email address.
Third, since you already updated your bio and personal information, you’ll need to add your birthday information. Also, you can choose the people who can see your birthday, just click the lock icon to personalise your account.
Fourth, you need to set or post your tweets to “public” meaning anyone has the privilege to see your tweets. In order to make this possible, you need to go at “Twitter Security” and “Privacy Settings” and make sure that the “Tweet Privacy” is unchecked.
Lastly, you need to go to the verification form on Twitter. During the verification process, twitter will require you to log in the account you preferred to verify. You will see from there a paragraph section that you need to answer on why you need to be verified with required number of characters. Also, to support your answer you can share some links for additional information.
And that’s it! It’s super easy to do, and you will be able to have comfort knowing that there is only one genuine you out there in the Twitter universe.
If there is one theme from businesses I hear time and time again when it comes to social media is “Yes I do know I need to use it but I don’t know what to say”. They have a Facebook page, and maybe a Twitter account, and happily follow others. But when it comes to posting their own content, there’s a huge blank.
Is this you? Have you set up a Facebook page or Twitter account, updated it every day (and sometimes more than once!) then after a month or so you couldn’t think of what else to put up on your page? Perhaps you set up a LinkedIn profile, added everyone you know, posted some really interesting content, then lost motivation?
I can assure you – you’re not alone.
The 80 / 20 rule
If there is one thing you take away from this article, is that you do not need to write every piece of content from scratch. In fact, it’s better if you don’t; that way if you are curating interesting content that your audience engages with, then you’ll be seen as a trusted source.
Ideally, your content should consist of 80 per cent ‘value’ based or educational content. This can be either curated (ie, sourced elsewhere with appropriate attribution) or created yourself. The remainder 20 per cent can be slightly more ‘salesy’ but still be respectful of your audience.
Think curation and creation!
So how do you consistently come up with interesting and engaging content without spending hours trawling through the internet and coming up with nothing? Here are my top 5 tips:
Identify leaders in your industry and share what they say. Sign up for their email newsletters and when a great article arrives in you inbox, share it with your fans!
When reading online newspapers and other news sites, if you come across an article you think might interest you followers, save it in a word document so you can use it later
Look at what you are doing in your work place right now. Is there an interesting project you are working on? A client who you could profile?
Have you made a mistake and learned a lesson in your workplace that you think your fans could benefit from? Hindsight is a wonderful thing (especially in business) and another business could learn from you.
Ask you fans, followers & clients what they would like to hear. Your fans are a rich source of information, so ask them lots of questions!
Over to you!
Are there other places you find inspiration?
If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!
With organic reach being impacted for Facebook pages, many businesses are turning to LinkedIn Company Pages to build a community and market their business. If your target audience is on LinkedIn, then this could be a worthwhile channel for you.
Like any other marketing channel, you need to have a plan for how you will use it to generate results. These are our top 7 tips for getting the most from your LinkedIn Company Page.
Use images that best reflect your business. The hero image, and profile picture are opportunities to showcase what your business does. And make sure you use a logo for extra
Share engaging content regularly. The best time to post can vary from industry to industry, but start with posting during business hours, and test from there.
Use your employees as part of your content. Ask them to share behind the scenes or industry knowledge so that your community can get to know your business behind the brand. Also, your employees can be your biggest advocates. Ask them to share your content with their networks.
Optimise for search by using keywords that focus on your business and your industry. You have 156 characters for your page text so use them wisely.
Use Sponsored content for your best performing content to extend your reach. This is a great tool to use for amplifying content, and drive traffic to your website, especially if it’s a blog article or lead capture page.
Tell people about your page. Just because you set up a page, it doesn’t mean that your audience will know about it. Add a link on your website and email signature. Make sure it’s on your own LinkedIn profile.
Monitor your analytics so you know what works and what doesn’t. Track how your content is performing in terms of reach and engagement as this can help you understand if your content is being seen.
With all social media channels, consistency is key. Small daily actions on your LinkedIn page (or a few times a week if that is best for you) are better than a huge burst, then nothing for months.
Social media marketing is never a set and forget marketing channel. If you’ve created a Facebook page, Twitter account or Instagram profile, you still need to regularly review how each channel is performing and make tweaks or changes to your activity.
One huge lesson we all got from the major changes to Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm is that you can no longer rely on doing the same activity over and over again and expect to always get the same results.
Here are seven things you can do to review how your social media channels are performing:
Is the channel still relevant to your business? If you can’t answer this question, head over to ‘Social Media Channel Plan’ and work through the questions.
When was the last time you updated your branding? Do your profile pictures or cover images need refreshing? And is your branding consistent across all of your channels and aligned with your website?
Are all of your profiles fully completed and optimised fully? Do you have completed bios for Twitter and a proper ‘About’ section for Facebook? Make sure these are consistent with your branding and align with your website.
See how your awareness is performing. If you’re using social media to increase awareness of your brand, then you will want to examine metrics like reach and impressions, as well as clicks (especially those that drive traffic to your website).
Have a look at your engagement metrics. Each channel will have insights data that you can have a look at. Spend a little time looking at your engagement (likes, shares, comments) month on month for about 6 months. Do you see the engagement trending upwards? Are you getting better engagement in some channels?
Are you posting content at the right time of the day for your audience?
Do you have the right followers to match your desired target audience? For example, on Facebook, you can see in your insights tab, data that shows audiences data such as location, gender and age.
Yesterday, I did a Facebook Live on the 4 elements you need to think about for any social media channel you use to market your business. Like any strategy, being super clear on why you are using something and knowing how it will add value to your business, will help ensure you don’t waste precious time and resources.
These elements to any good social media channel plan are:
Purpose
Objectives
Audience
Tactics
Have a look at the video for more:
Make sure you don’t miss out on more Facebook Lives by joining our Facebook community!