Everyone knows not to add or follow the “egg” accounts on Twitter. Those are the people –or things, who knows –who seem to spam others with links, dirty photos, fake notices and crap. And we all know not to open emails from people and companies we’ve never heard of or didn’t sign up for. Another “no-no” — creating empty or skeleton profiles to start off your social media and online presence for your company.
Would you build a store — for profit — and never open the doors? No? Exactly! What would be the point? The same concept is applied to those who think that just creating an online social media account is good enough. They say to themselves, they’ll come back to it later and update it. But days turn into months and they still have that egg picture account on Twitter –wondering why no one’s following them. In business, it’s said, if people don’t know you’re there, you don’t exist. It doesn’t matter how evolutionary your products are or how ground-breaking your service is, if people don’t know it’s there, it doesn’t exist. If you social profiles are empty — you’ve written or added nothing there — you don’t exist.
People like to Google — EVERYTHING. If you’re networking and you happen to bring up you have your own little boutique business and you do this and that, people are going to search for you on the internet. It doesn’t matter if you gave them a business card or not, people are going to want to find out as much about you as they can. And the more they can learn, the better they feel about you and your company. But, if in their search, they stumble upon half-filled and empty profiles you’ve set up but never completed, they’re going wonder. Wonder about the legitimacy of your business (yes, for real! because every business should have a carefully placed social media presence) and about your work style. If you can’t complete something for yourself, how are you going to complete something for a colleague or a client?
But people do this all the time. The hear of a new social site, join it — reading very little about it — create a profile with a little information and that’s it. Really. They give 30 seconds because they think that’s all it takes rather than spend the seven minutes to make their profile something worth exploring. Some may say, ‘who cares, it’s just a profile’. Your company cares. Your company needs to be found and do business and make money. Every business, even non-profits and religious organizations — are businesses and their goals are to make money (that might sound sacrilegious to some, but it’s the truth. Think of the collection plates and “building funds“).
It doesn’t take a whole lot to make a nice and searchable profile, but you gotta put more in it. Company name, logo/ photo — give an image to the name, something about the company or yourself — why did you start your business and what is it’s primary mission– it’s general location, ways to contact the business. Definitely include a website or blog site link. Give people a reason to touch base with you. Get out of the habit of half doing things, even social media accounts. They matter because they reflect your image and brand. And if you think that doesn’t matter — you’re not in business.
{photo credit: http://www.iconarchive.com}
Related articles
- How Social Media Changes Business (business2community.com)
- Perceptions in Social Media (business2community.com)
- Social Media Management 101: Casey Gollan’s Complete Guide for Businesses (prweb.com)
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