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.
