How to Effectively Use All Your Social Media Platforms

As a business it’s beneficial for you to be a part of various popular social media sites. Reaching the various overpopulated networks creates maximum exposure. However, you aren’t actually doing any good if you aren’t presenting a unified front between them. You have separate accounts, but the multiple platforms should essentially be seen as one. You want your customer to move between them without knowing the difference.

While your networks present various degrees of customer engagement, each in their own unique way, together they should be a single unit, representing your brand consistently. Having a strong brand image is important to do this well. After employing new sharing techniques, and making a few tweaks to your profiles, you’ll have a free flowing social presence in no time.

Brand Image

As you know, your brand makes you recognizable. NetMBA.com pointed out that, “The brand can add significant value when it is well recognized and has positive associations in the mind of the consumer.” If this is the case, you want your brand to be consistent between the platforms. To do this, you should keep a few things in mind.

• Color scheme is important. This can be incorporated in the design of your Twitter page, welcome page on Facebook and blog theme.
• Your default photo doesn’t have to be your logo, but should be representative of the brand in a recognizable way.
• Present yourself as the same business online as you are off. When you are your authentic self, customers trust you.

Get Linked Up

Your business reaches one audience on Facebook, talks with another group of your customer base on Twitter, and presents thoughtful content to the ones caught in the blogosphere. Your business is in good shape to reach everyone you want, yet you are not as successful as you could be. In order to get maximum benefit from your social presence, you want customers to be visiting all your sites. There are a variety of ways to do this.

• On Facebook, make your “Follow me” button visible.
• On Twitter, have your website link immediately below your Twitter handle. Then create a custom background, like @Souplantation, directing followers to your Facebook page and blog.
• On your blog, set up a Twitter feed so you are then connecting with your readers as well.

Let the Various Platforms Supplement One Another

While having a blog is great, and you hope to build a community there, Facebook is more within the immediate reach of most of your customers. Putting exclusive deals on Twitter are great, but not when they only reach the people who already follow you. Keeping posts consistent between platforms is integral in getting as many people involved as possible. You want to reach your entire audience, not just the ones that happen to populate that one network. To do this, you want to spread any new content or information across all platforms.

• Get your blog post in a Tweet, so it can be shared. Then put it on Facebook so those who aren’t in the blogging world can see it and then post comments on their network of choice.
• When you give an exclusive Twitter deal, tell your Facebook fans to follow you for dibs on it too.
• If you put up photos from an event, make it known in all areas. Twitter and your blog aren’t conducive to albums or multiple photos, so put them where it is. Then bring everyone else there.

To effectively use all your social networks, you have to present them as one unified platform. You want your customers to move freely between the various platforms, getting the same business and familiar brand no matter where they are.

Bio: Jessica Sanders is an avid small business writer touching on topics from social media to phone systems. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including medical billing software for b2b lead generation resource, Resource Nation.