How to Start Your Business: Part Seven (Snap Up Those Social Profiles and Start Using Them)

You’ve got all your major design elements in place (including your business card), so it’s important to start getting your social profiles up to speed.

1. Create your profiles.

• Get the same handles everywhere. Do whatever you can to get a social media handles that make sense for your business and that are the same across the board.
  
• Join all of the major networks. Even if you aren’t going to use everything right now, it’s important to create the profile so that you have it. Make sure you join the following:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn (company profile)
  • Google+
  • YouTube
  • Pinterest
    
• Use the same images across the board. You’ll need both a square version of your logo, along with some sort of cover photo.
  
• The more information, the better. Make sure you fill out all the information you possibly can and make sure it’s cohesive across all your platforms.
  
• Cross link where you can. Be sure to link back and forth between all of your social media profiles.

2. Personalize when you can.

You can’t get custom URLs everywhere, but that’s why getting the right handle is so important.

• Facebook. Once your Facebook business page has 25 fans, you can get your custom URL by going here. Until recently, you didn’t have the option, but you can now have one chance to change this, so choose wisely!
  
• YouTube. Your YouTube channel URL won’t be automatic, so you’ll need to set it up under Channel Settings > Info and Settings.

3. Get a little help from your friends.

It’s important that you haven’t asked this often for friends to follow your social profiles; otherwise you might have a hard time getting people to help out. It’s extremely helpful to have the beginnings of a following before you’re completely up and running.

4. Start adding content.

Last, but certainly not least, make sure that all of your social profiles have some content so they look “lived in” upon launch. This can be anything from your blog content to other information on the web.

Now get out there and snap up those social profiles!

Step 8, check. Next time we’ll talk about helpful tools for small business.