By: Katie Englishmen, Social Media Strategist
Of course, we have all heard the term “spring cleaning.” While this tradition may either evoke fear or joy, we can all agree that there is something about the onset of spring that brings the urge to tidy up and organize. Deep cleaning your home, packing away those cold-weather clothes, and purging the unnecessary feels great!
Take advantage of this added motivation and apply it to your brand’s social media channels and strategy. Below are some of our top tips for tidying up your brand’s social presence:
Optimize Social Bios
We take great care to set up our brand’s social bios upon launch, but when was the last time you revisited that bio? Check out your brand’s social media profiles across all accounts (this includes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc). Are there specific callouts, content or updates you should include that would be helpful for your audience? The answer is almost always YES! Your profile bio is a great place to highlight not only key information about your brand, but also get strategic with keywords to help your brand’s searchability factor.
Update Banners and Backgrounds
Piggybacking off the bio text optimization noted above, you also want your banners and backgrounds on social media to reflect not only who you are as a brand, but also show off the fact that your brand is creative and on-trend. The banners utilized on your brand’s social media properties are prime real estate, so make sure they do an excellent job of telling your story in a visually appealing and unique way.
Make sure all links are relevant/functioning (on your website as well!)
After you are done updating your brand bios and banners, it’s time to double-check your links. Click around and make sure that all your links are working as they should be. If you are running with a bio link tool for Instagram, make sure that the most important content is top of the list and that old links are replaced with more relevant, up-to-date information. On your website, make sure that there are no broken links and that your website’s social media icons are above the fold and click through to the correct accounts.
Review Site Permissions
It is important to review who has permission to your social properties and website. Often with company turnover or account transitions, people will remain on your social properties that no longer need access. Dig into permission levels and ensure that the correct players, and only them, have access.
Domain Verification – IOS 14 updates
By now we have all heard of the Apple IOS 14 updates that are coming in hot. With these updates, Facebook will need to make changes to the way it is tracking across the app, including on your website and conversion events. If you are running any boosted posts or Facebook/Insta ads, make sure you have verified your domain to help avoid any disruption with your paid promotions.
Ephemeral Content Organization
Ephemeral content was huge for garnering engagement and views in 2020 and will continue to be an ongoing trend into the foreseeable future. Story highlights on Instagram are an excellent way to organize your ephemeral content and ensure that it lives forever within your account. Start with an outline of your social initiatives and categorize your stories in a way that aligns with your brand goals. A few ideas could include focusing on specific events, hashtag challenges, merchandise promotion, and UGC/influencer content.
Polish up your content/platforms/trends/goals
If you are not spending money for paid promotions on social platforms, maybe now is the time to reconsider and try something new! Or if you are actively advertising across social, take this time to dust off your strategy from last year and make some adjustments. Evaluate the platforms that make sense for your brand to push paid ads on. Evaluate current social trends and the content you are promoting via your organic strategy. Start with setting a few quarterly goals to evaluate performance in smaller doses. This allows you to make optimizations to strategy and content as you go. Paid social promotion is all about testing and learning, so have fun with it!
Now it’s time to get to work and attract all those new followers and engagements with your sparkly clean social media channels. Happy Spring Cleaning everyone!