Super Simple Social Media Tips That You Can Do on Your Business Pages Today

by Heidi Chun, Social Media Consultant and writer/photographer for ILoveMV.org

1. Clean the lens on your cell phone before you take a photo. It seems so obvious, but some people don’t even think about it, and then their photos come out all foggy and they don’t know why, or they think they need a better cell phone. You probably don’t need a better phone, just wipe the phone’s camera lens on your sleeve before you take a photo. I took these two images of my garage before and after cleaning the camera lens. Just look at the difference! It took 1 second to make a major improvement.


2. Show behind-the-scenes view of your business, whether it’s in a video or a regular photo. We do this at the Chamber all the time. It’s easy and fun. I definitely recommend tidying up before you take that photo because no one wants to see your garbage can or a messy pile of junk mail. They want to see happy people at work, whether they’re writing software, making martinis, pouring concrete, coloring hair, doing taxes, showing a house, or making floral arrangements, people (your potential customers) are interested in seeing what happens at your business. Show them what they want; they want to see your smiling staff, and you, on the job.


3. Take advantage of anything unusual, funny, particularly interesting, like puppies or cute babies. Social media is loaded with pictures like that for a reason. People love it! Whenever Tony brings his dogs to the office, I try to get a short (10 seconds is plenty long enough) video of them clowning around. Helming’s Auto Repair does a good job capturing their shop mascot, Stanley, and any other dogs that happen to visit. If there’s a bird nest, a friendly squirrel, an office cat, anything like that, try to get a cute photo of it. If at all possible, photos of the child or animal looking directly at the camera are usually better than photos taken from the top or the back.


4. Use the cover photo on your business profiles wisely. It’s a major piece of real estate and it’s like free advertising and whether you like it or not, your business is being judged by how good your Facebook page looks.

























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































 
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The cover photo is the big wide photo at the top of your page. Show people what the front of your business looks like. Since you’re allowed to upload video on Facebook business pages as a cover photo, you should do it. It must be a 20 to 90 second video and in landscape format to be used as a cover photo. I’ve uploaded video on the Chamber’s page and show the front of our funky little building and that it’s nestled on the edge of Pioneer Park.

If you don’t have a nice video, or don’t know how to make one, a high quality, landscape format photo is great. That means you have to hold your phone sideways (landscape position) when you take the photo, not the upright, tall direction (portrait).  Once again, Helming’s Auto Repair does a fabulous job at appropriately using their cover photo space by showing the front of their shop, with a good looking red vintage car parked in front of the business. Their photo tells viewers that they can be trusted with classic cars and that their business is nice and clean. Other examples of nicely done cover photos are Computer History Museum, Mountain View Police Department, I Love Mountain View, and Zume Pizza.

Don’t simply put your logo as a profile picture and put it again as a cover photo. That’s just lazy and repetitive, and that doesn’t reflect well on your business. It’s fine to put your logo as a profile photo, but then you need to put a nice quality photo as a cover photo. You can even upload it right from your phone. It’s easy. Either show a photo of your the front of your building, or of the ‘experience’ of your business, or your product. Your customers will love it.

Okay, that’s my 4 super simple ideas that you can do today to make your business social media pages look more enticing.  I’ll be doing more posts about social media here in the future, so let me know if you have any specific topics or questions that I should cover. I’m happy to do so and I love helping businesses connect with customers online.

Here are a few pages that you should be following:
I Love Mountain View on Facebook
Mountain View Chamber on Facebook
Leadership Mountain View on Facebook
I Love Mountain View on Instagram
Mountain View Chamber on Instagram
 

Thank you!