Spring is in the air, hooray!
Whilst you might be tidying up the garden or freshening up inside your home, don’t forget to give your social media a spring clean too!
If you use digital platforms to support your business, it’s easy to forget to check-in on them and leave out-dated info gathering dust.
Here are my top tips for a quick social media clean up…
Declutter your LinkedIn connections
That feeling you get from clearing out your home of the clutter you no longer want or need?
You can get the same from de-cluttering your business contacts on LinkedIn!
It may feel ruthless, but if you’ve been on LinkedIn for a long time then you’ve probably made connections along the way that are no longer relevant to where you are in your career now. Can you even remember who some of them are, what they do, or how you met them?
Don’t hold onto contacts for the vanity aspect of having 500+ connections. Contacts on LinkedIn should be relevant to your business or add value to your growth. After all, the goal of using LinkedIn is to develop yourself, grow awareness and nurture relationships that could result in business.
If you want to stay in touch with the marine-biology student you house-shared with at university, add them as a friend on Facebook! Unless you’re in the same field or share the same customer base, their content is likely just clogging up your newsfeed and stopping you from seeing the really important stuff.
And vice versa… friends are highly likely to support you with likes and shares, but it doesn’t actually serve your business to have your posts prioritised in the wrong newsfeeds.
Freshen up your bios
Remember that bio you wrote when you first created your social media page years ago?
When was the last time you reviewed it?
Chances are, your business has evolved in some way. You may have added to your offering, worked on your tone of voice, or changed your website address, for example.
Give your bios a check-over to make sure they still reflect your brand and don’t have any broken links or incorrect contact details.
Then you could freshen them up by making sure you’re focusing on the benefits to your customers and clearly conveying how you help.
Revitalise your graphics
The same goes for your social media graphics.
If you’re still using the same stock photo from ten years ago as your cover photo, or a low-quality picture from before you had an armoury of professional shots, it’s an instant turn-off for people that land on your page.
Be critical about pixelated images and outdated, uninspiring photos – because your customers will be!
Replace them with something more up-to-date and instantly recognisable. And don’t forget to make sure you use the same logo and cover photo across all your social media pages, so it’s easy for followers to identify you on multiple platforms.
Tidy up your Instagram Highlights
Saving Instagram stories into Highlight albums is a great way to showcase different news items at the top of your feed long after the 24-hour story has disappeared, but they can become irrelevant - particularly if you’ve saved special offers or events that have now expired.
Go through your Highlights and remove any that are no longer relevant. Don’t forget to also add in newer stories that can replace them.
Plant seeds
Whilst spring is a great time of year to have a clear out, it’s also important to plant seeds for new growth.
Have you been regularly posting on your social media pages? Replying to comments, tags and reviews? Engaging on other posts and pages?
All of this leads to greater exposure and helps you sow the seeds for new connections and business.
If you’ve de-cluttered your LinkedIn connections, spend some time reaching out to fresh contacts that could breathe new life into your newsfeed and who you could add value to.
Take a moment to reflect on your social media performance over the last 12 months and have a strategy in place to consistently keep watering those flowers!
If gardening or cleaning just isn’t your thing, reach out for some help. I love getting my hands dirty!