When it comes to social media – keep it simple.

Image courtesy of Jimee, Jackie, Tom & Asha

One issue I’ve noticed when looking at companies’ social media programs is that some of those who embrace it are making it too difficult for audiences to follow them online.

Multiple accounts and profiles on the same social media site such as Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube fragments your audience and confuses them as well. Our suggestion is always to just keep things simple (which isn’t always an easy thing in the world of social media).  These are some guidelines we go by:

1.     Pick a name and stick with it – Decide on who or what you want to be known as and do your best to keep that same name on every social media site you use. If possible also use the same profile image (or logo) for your accounts. This eliminates any confusion among your audience about who you are.

2.     Make yourself searchable – The profile bios on your Twitter, LinkedIn, or YouTube pages are perfect opportunities to get more information about you out to the search engines. To make things easy on yourself, write one catch-all profile description and use it on all the sites you sign up for. Depending on the site, you may want to tweak it slightly, but it will save you time and provide a cohesive presence across all the platforms you plan on using.

3.     Make it easy for your audience – Whenever possible, add crosslinks to as many of your sites as you can. If you don’t have a link to your YouTube page on your site, or in your blog, your audience will have to find it themselves. Save them a Google search by including a link for them. By doing this you also ensure your audience will get to that YouTube page without getting distracted by an ad on Google while searching for it.  

4.     Personalize your URL – Many sites allow you to change the default URL they give you to a personal URL that is much more user-friendly. Be sure to take advantage of this because it is easier to tell someone to go to http://flickr.com/maplesdmg than to flickr.com/photos/f230fdhdfh39fak3s0fajfa

5.     Always have a home base – Whether it is your blog or your homepage, make sure you have a space that you control and that is the center of your entire network. This is the site you link to first on any site you sign up for, and ideally this is the site you want your audience to end up visiting. This way if Twitter never finds a way to secure itself or make money, or Facebook starts to go the way of MySpace, you will still have your own plot of land in cyberspace for whatever comes along next.

Tags: best practices, digital media, how-to, public relations, social media