Whilst the weather remains disappointingly frosty, Spring will be upon us (officially at least) in a matter of days. We’ll soon be feeling the urge to rid ours homes of the dust that’s accumulated over long dark winter evenings when the sofa and a glass of wine had a stronger pull than hoovering under the stairs. In addition to throwing open the bedroom windows and getting stuck into a thoroughly good spring-clean, now is a great time to clear out your social media too. So, before you pull on the marigolds – after all, it’s not really warm enough to open the windows just yet – take some time to give your social media profiles a good polish. Here are our top tips for getting your social media organised, uncluttered and squeaky clean:
Throw out your Twitter Trash
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: when it comes to who you follow on Twitter, its quality, not quantity, that counts. Invest some time now in following quality Twitter users who are sharing content relevant to your business and ditch the ones who aren’t. Don’t be afraid to unfollow extraneous users; in the same way that your elderly aunt won’t know that you donated the vase she gave you to the school tombola, they probably won’t even notice that you’re no longer following them.
Creating and updating lists within Twitter will cut out unwanted noise and make space to participate in conversations that have real value. Tweepi is a great tool for cleaning up your Twitter account, enabling you to quickly spot the users you follow who do not follow you and listing all of the users whom you follow, with information about each. You can use the sorting feature and stats to unfollow inactive users, spammers, people with low follow-back ratio and so on.
Freshen up your Facebook
It’s not personal, it’s business!
If you’re using a personal Facebook account for your business, then change it with the FIRST sweep of your spring-cleaning brush! By not establishing a Facebook Page for your business, not only are you losing access to advertising options, analytics and apps for business use, but maintaining a personal account for anything other than an individual is a violation of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. If your business or brand is guilty of this and you don’t convert the personal account to a Page, your business risks permanently losing access to the account and all of its content. If you’re in violation of this rule, now’s the time to migrate the personal profile in question to a Facebook Page. Trust us, it’s worth it!
Rules, rules and more rules…
Something else Facebook will seriously rap your knuckles for is using too much text on your cover images and promoted images. The new “20% rule” (which took effect this January) essentially means you’re not allowed to have more than 20% of your image devoted to text. Thankfully, Facebook has a tool that advertisers can use to check their promoted posts for compliance. With numerous reports of cover images being taken down and promoted posts being rejected based on violation of this rule, we’d definitely advise cleaning up in this area!
It’s good to list
If you’re not already using Facebook Lists to ensure that you’re sharing the right content with the right people, now is the time to sort through your “people” and add business friends as “Acquaintances” and personal friends and family as “Close Friends”. This enables you to share relevant content with exactly the right lists of people, rather than broadcasting haphazardly to all your followers.
A Leaner LinkedIn
Don’t neglect your LinkedIn profile when rolling your sleeves up for the big clean-up: navigating LinkedIn properly will enable you to engage customers, develop valuable business relationships and generate sales leads, so focus now on revamping your profile: update your personal images, company pages and skills. Unfollow groups that you’re not participating in and search out new groups that will attract fresh traffic to your profile.
All Clean…
There’s no denying the truth in the old adage “tidy house, tidy mind” and we really believe that the same applies to your social media abodes. If you want to head into Spring with a fresh, effective and streamlined social media presence, then now’s the time to give your profiles a thoroughly good polishing! Spring is a great opportunity to clear out the cobwebs. Don’t forget to congratulate yourself on what you’ve done well so far and resolve to build on that for the coming (warmer) months. Happy cleaning everyone!
