So you’ve launched your website, you’ve planned your local content, and you’ve set up Google Reviews. What next? Claiming your name on social media of course!
How to claim your name successfully…
Not only will claiming your name on social help you in search results but you can protect your brand by securing your username. A good place to start is to reserve your name on popular networks such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. As a general rule you should create all these accounts with a neutral email account such as info@sokada.co.uk or social@sokada.co.uk.
Even if you don’t plan to use your accounts right away, it’s best to claim your name over the most popular networks first so that you can stop anyone else claiming them. Keep your name short, snappy and easy to spell, for example, don’t include a random series of letters or numbers after your name. On Instagram someone had already claimed @sokada, so we used @sokadauk. This makes sense as we are based in the UK! Most networks also have a character limit, so keep this in mind too, you may need to abbreviate.
Be consistent…
It’s also best to keep your name the same across all social networks to ensure consistency. So if your name on Facebook is ‘yourbranduk’, it should also be ‘yourbranduk’ on Twitter, Instagram and so on – so make sure they’re available before going ahead.
If you do find that someone has already claimed your name and is using your logo or other assets then they could be violating the site’s trademark policy. You can generally report this to the social platform. However, if the user isn’t violating any trademark policies, you will just have to find an alternative that is in line with your brand, or you could always ask them nicely to change their name.
It’s all in the detail
Next you need to set up your profiles with your business details, location, and website information. It’s really important to complete these fully – making no effort to do this reflects poorly on your brand – so make sure you sit down and set aside some time to do it. Include all these new social links on your website too so visitors can click through to your pages and stay connected with you long-term.
Last but not least, be sure to post any content from your blog to your social feeds. If you go on to promote these on your social platforms, you can generate a nice steady stream of visitors to your website, thus increasing the chances of converting a visitor into a customer.
If you’re not sure how to get going with social media then give us a call on 01435 817226 or drop us an email and we can give you some guidance on how to get started!