What to Post When you Create your Business Social media Account
I learned recently that a lot of business owners want to put their new businesses on social media, but just don’t know how to start, what their first post should be, what to put on their bio, and other “tiny” questions that can be overwhelming and paralyzing.
I manage social media pages for businesses with my team on Words on Us, and I’ve written this article to break down my simple and straightforward pattern to set up your business on social media and start showing off. I’ll be focusing on instagram but the tips here will apply to other social media platforms, so be sure to use it everywhere.
Before I even get started on the steps, I always advise business owners to create a brand style guide first before they start posting on social media. A brand style guide contains details about how you want your brand to appear on media; digital and physical. It includes details like why you’re on social media, your target audience, writing style or tone, your logo and how you prefer to have it placed, your preferred fonts, your color codes and more. I insist on color codes and not just the color name because codes are accurate. You don’t want different hues of your colors showing up on your pages and confusing your followers. Learn more about it here.
Let’s get to it!
Your Bio
When you have created the social media page, start with writing your bio. This should include a description of your business, and your services/products. You can also add a call-to-action if you have the space. It’s important for people to be able to glance at your page and know if you have something they want.
Here’s an example of a social media bio for my content development agency, Words on Us:
Description → Content Development Agency in Nigeria
Services → Ghostwriting, social media content development, article writing, lead generator development
Call-to-action → Send a DM to get started on your next book project.
Put these all together and you have a complete bio.
Your Profile Picture
Don’t start following people or even making posts until you’ve uploaded a picture to your profile. People are going to think your business is fraudulent if there’s no picture they can associate it with.
Contrary to popular opinion, your business profile picture doesn’t have to be a logo. Sure, your business should have a logo, but if people mostly associate your face with your business, there’s no reason you shouldn’t have your face up there.
For example, if you run a cleaning agency, and you’ve been talking about it and people know you as the cleaning agency guy, then by all means, upload a picture of yourself holding a mop, rather than a logo that people don’t know or care about.
Your First 5 Posts
Don't just start with posting pictures of your products and typing "buy my market". The first posts are always the hardest, but once you do them, it gets a lot easier to carry on. I’ve created a list of the first 5 posts any business should post.
Your logo and a caption describing your business. If you have brand pictures, post them as well. This refers to pictures of you or your team performing services or pictures of your products.
A post about why you started, accompanied by a picture of yourself. This post should be written to elicit emotion, to show the passion behind your business. It’s supposed to make your target audience feel something, so be sure to put your heart into it.
The third post should be about how you help, that means posting your services and how it benefits the target audience. Just posting the services or the features of your product is not enough, you need to show how it helps the user, so prioritize benefits over features.
I believe the fourth post should show clearly how interested customers can work with your business. Show them the process for working with you so there’s no question about that.
The fifth post before you begin to post about everyday things should be reviews or a review. The post should show what people have to say about your brand. That’s the cincher most of the time. That’s the post that gets people to finally make the decision to work with you.
I also advise that you post motivational/inspirational content in-between these 5 posts to keep it light.
Your Story Highlights
This part isn’t mandatory but you should definitely get it. It makes it so much easier for visitors to get a feel of your business. In my opinion, there are 3 story highlights that a business Instagram page absolutely has to have.
About - The about highlight should contain stories that show page visitors what your brand is all about, from behind-the-scenes of production to team hangouts.
Reviews - This is so people can find customer feedback without having to scroll through your page.
Tips - It may look unnecessary, but you want to be seen as helpful. Drop tips your target audience could use. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but it’d definitely make them like you more.
As soon as you have all these things, you can go ahead and start selling, start running ads, start showing the day to day of your business and be sure that your page has everything it needs to convince your target audience to work with you. It’s pretty easy when you have a guide like this, and now you do.
Follow these steps, and share them with a friend.
Very insightful piece!
ReplyDeleteI wish I knew this earlier. Thank you
ReplyDelete