Run Your Social Accounts Like a Pro

Are you sold on the benefits of creating engaging social media accounts to help you connect with colleagues and clients, but you aren’t sure exactly what to post and when? Our social media expert Taryn Butler has created a detailed guide to LinkedIn and Twitter for our clients. Here’s a sneak peek:

LinkedIn

The tone on LinkedIn is buttoned up and professional.

Tips

• It’s important to have both an active firm page and an active personal page
• People engage more with other people (rather than organizations)
• Schedule 10 minutes per day to add content and keep your page active

Guidelines

• Frequency: Once a week on average, but every other week is fine for firm news
• Type of content: Professional material only (networking events, conferences, firm/work-related news, awards, etc.)
• What makes a good post? A picture from an event (don’t forget to tag the people involved), a link to a useful article, brief informational posts demonstrating your areas of expertise or commenting on trends in your clients’ industries, articles you write or in which you are quoted, firm-sponsored community service activities, award notifications
• Visuals: Use your firm headshot as your profile photo. Network: Expand your network by commenting on/linking to conferences, networking events, social events, etc. Always include images or graphics when you can.
• If you meet someone at a conference, don’t be afraid to add them as a connection afterward and send them a personal message.
• You don’t always need to draft a post in order to participate: Liking, commenting, and sharing other people’s content is a great way to engage and be more visible. Doing so will also bump up the chances of others returning the favor on your own content.
• For more information, check out this guide to LinkedIn.

Twitter

The tone on Twitter . . . well, let’s just say it varies. Be yourself, but be careful!

Tips

• Twitter is an excellent source of news, so even passive engagement has benefits.
• Not sure what your tweets should look like? Take a look at what your competitors are doing and do that — but better.
• Brevity is the key. Practice making concise, thoughtful comments. Humor encouraged.

Guidelines

• Frequency: Ranging from once or twice a day to a couple times per week. As long as you are saying something of value, oversaturation is not an issue.
• Type of content: Both professional and (within reason) personal
• What goes into a tweet? Short, sweet and to the point. When applicable, add links to articles or websites, pictures, tag other organizations/people (if appropriate — we still need to follow the rules), use a relevant hashtag or two.
• Use conferences and other industry events as an opportunity: Tweet before, during and after use an official hashtag if they have one.
• Be sure to read an article all the way to the end before retweeting. Offer a short insight on why the article is significant or what it means for the relevant industries.
• Hashtags are great, but limit yourself to one or two per tweet.
• For more information, check out this guide to Twitter.

How are you using social media to reach new clients? Tell us about it on Twitter: @page2comm.com