This is your chance to make a good first impression! Spell out what your brand does with just a few words and links! [Thursdays: FYO!]
In our past “Find You Optimization!” articles, we talked about a few social media strategies to boost your brand’s online presence.
These include topics about social media contests and marketing on TikTok, LinkedIn, Reddit, Tumblr, Snapchat Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Quora, YouTube, BuzzFeed, Viber, and WhatsApp.
While there’s plenty of talk about algorithms and how to grow your brand online through these platforms, there’s not much discussion about some “back to basics” topics regarding social media.
One of these topics?
The importance of a good social media bio!
Your social media bios help define your target market’s first impression about your brand. If anything seems off in your bios, you might drive away potential followers and customers.
There are a few reasons why a good brand biography is important:
First, a lot of people have short attention spans. As a brand owner or marketer, you only have a few seconds to grab your target market’s attention and compel them to follow you on social media.
One of the ways to do that?
Set up a concise yet substantial and catchy brand profile that will let consumers know what your business is all about!
Give your target market a brief background about your products or services and the problems your offerings can solve. This will help you establish a connection with consumers right from the start.
Another reason to have a good bio is online traffic.
The more optimized your brand’s profile is, the more traffic and potential followers you’ll attract!
Here are some of the benefits of a well-rounded social media bio:
- It helps form an initial positive impression to consumers who are very thorough when choosing a brand.
- It articulates what your business does with just a few words.
- It contributes to more search hits and increases your brand’s online visibility through hashtags (#) and keywords you use.
Think of a good social media bio as your business’ “elevator pitch.” Use this tool to make a good first impression to various audiences, whether consumers, resellers, or other businesses!
[Elevator Pitch: A brief pitch or information used to spark curiosity about what your brand or business does. These details should be interesting, memorable, and succinct.]
Below are a few strategies in creating an effective social media bio:
- Make your tone conversational.
Talk about your business as a normal person would. After all, it’s not a bot that’s managing your brand’s social media.
It’s either you or someone from your team working behind the scenes to operate your brand’s accounts or pages.
Take a look at Dollar Shave Club’s Twitter profile.
As you can see, the company features a banner image with diverse faces that give the brand a human touch.
Additionally, the way Dollar Shave Club wrote its bio was conversational and approachable, making the company’s offerings easier to understand.
No wonder why Dollar Shave Club gained 87,000 (and counting) followers on Twitter!
- Clarify your brand’s purpose.
Consumers don’t just want to know who you are as a brand. They also want to know what you can do for them.
Spelling that out in your bio can help.
Marie Claire is a globally known women’s magazine. Instead of calling itself as “another women’s magazine,” the brand’s Twitter bio asserts its dominion on all things female.
Even if someone doesn’t know much about the brand, its short-but-sweet bio packs enough punch for consumers to click the link and know more about Marie Claire.
- Use emojis where appropriate.
Aside from visually representing your brand’s products or services, emojis add a splash of color and expression in your bio.
These icons also cover a lot in concise space―suitable for social media platforms that limit the character count!
Fashion brand ASOS offers different products on clothing, makeup, and accessories.
To encourage Instagram users to check out its other businesses, the brand uses emojis to introduce the profiles of each ASOS product line, support channel, and website.
Through the emojis, consumers get an idea of what product or service each ASOS profile offers such as makeups, skincare products, dresses, shoes, and many more!
- Incorporate keywords.
It’s important to include keywords commonly used in your industry or by your target market.
Why?
Keywords not only help in discoverability within your network, but also aid consumers to map their needs to your business, thereby increasing brand recognition.
Male deodorant brand Old Spice does a great job on this.
As you can see, even when the brand only used a string of keywords in its bio, the strategy doesn’t feel lacking.
In fact, Old Spice’s Instagram profile managed to capture the essence of what the brand does in just 5 words!
This lives up to what Shakespeare said in one of his famous quotes, “Brevity is the soul of wit.”
- Include hashtags.
Hashtags are another social media tool to boost online visibility.
Why not use this tool in your brand’s bio to help spell out what you do?
This helps in two ways: Attracting the right audience and making yourself more visible on search results!
Beard Man Kit is an example of a brand that uses hashtags on its bio efficiently.
The hashtag, #Beardlove, not only covers most of what the brand does but is also a hashtag that has generated thousands of posts online.
This makes Beard Man Kit’s Instagram profile more discoverable for its target market because once a consumer searches for the hashtag, the brand will be included in the search results.
You may also include your own branded hashtags for an additional boost to your online visibility.
- Add important call-to-actions (CTAs) or relevant links.
According to a referral traffic report from content marketing website Shareaholic, around 26% of website referrals came from social media pages and profiles.
That shows how important it is to set up a good bio for your business.
So… if you have a web page or a new campaign landing page, you might want to add it prominently on your bio to get more traffic.
Let’s take a look at furniture company Pottery Barn’s Instagram page.
While there’s nothing too fancy going on in the brand’s bio, it serves the purpose that the Instagram feed aims to do: Encourage consumers to shop from Pottery Barn’s online store.
With the key CTA, which is the link to the brand’s online store, social media window-shoppers are coaxed to check out Pottery Barn’s collection… and eventually transact with the brand!
Who knows? Customers who like Pottery Barn’s online store might also share the link to their family and friends, thereby increasing the brand’s online traffic and overall reach.
A strong social media presence starts with a strong foundation. Part of that is a good social media bio.
Use this tool to make your brand stand out from the rest of your competitors!
By taking note of the brand profile strategies mentioned above, you and your business will be up and running on social media in no time.
Apply these tips as you create your brand’s bio on different online platforms and open more opportunities to connect with your target market!
About The Dynamic Marketing Communiqué’s
“Thursdays: FYO! Find You Optimization”
Why should you stop thinking SEO and start thinking FYO?
We’re not saying that you should abandon Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Don’t get us wrong, of course, we know this is something very important, especially in today’s digital marketing age.
The internet landscape is vast, and a world of its own. You really need to distinguish yourself and make your brand/company/website known and easily searchable.
Better yet, get to the top of page one for Top Results on Google or any other search engine.
However, what is the purpose of SEO? It’s that customers Find You!
That’s what matters. So, while SEO is one factor of FYO… it really is only one, and we ought not to abandon all the myriad of ways digitally and offline for improving your FYO.
How can we look at this from a different and better perspective?
Let’s say you have it in the bag! You and your team are experts in SEO. Awesome. But did you ever wonder what else you could do to push it further and give your SEO skills a boost?
FYO! Find You Optimization!
You need your target audience to FIND YOU—your brand, product, service, or offer. This is SEO plus other tools that increase visibility online (and offline).
Every Thursday, we publish content on how you can get your target market to find you, beyond the typical “type and search.” There are other things you can do along with your SEO to give your online advertising process a boost.
Try considering other tactics beyond it—WOMO (Word Of Mouth Optimization), RO (Referral Optimization), and “All-Other-Means-Of-Getting-Your-Target-Market-To-Find-You” Optimization (AOMOGYTMTFY, if you’d like a long acronym).
Part of a great marketing strategy is knowing how to adapt new methods and make use of different types of marketing and promotion that best fit your business goals and which give you the results you want.
Hope you’ve found this week’s insights interesting and helpful.
Stay tuned for next Thursday’s FYO!
Cheers,
Kyle Yu
Head of Marketing
Valens Dynamic Marketing Capabilities
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