What do your social profiles have to do with your online marketing efforts? It has a lot to do with your ultimate success, actually. Prospects are much more likely to sign up for your mailing list and buy your products if they feel that they can trust you.
If you want to build trust with people who visit your site, you need to present yourself as someone they will want to do business with. Your social profiles and the information you are sharing with others on social networking sites should reflect the image you want to project.
Expect Your Prospects to Check Out Your Social Profiles
You can expect that prospects and potential joint venture partners will be taking the time to check out your social profiles. This practice has become a standard way to get to know somebody before deciding whether to take the next step and interact with them online.
Since you know your social profiles are going to be scrutinized, take some time to update them to make sure that they are presenting the right image. If you haven’t already, upload a recent photo of yourself. Don’t worry if you probably would not be chosen to be on the cover of Vogue or GQ; the idea here is to present yourself as you are. People visiting your site want to get an idea of who they are dealing with, and having an image helps to make you more real to your prospects and others.
Check Your Personal Details
Next, you’ll want to check out your public profile as it appears to someone who clicks on it. As you review the information there, ask yourself if you would want to get to know more about this person and possibly buy from him or her. if the answer is anything other than a resounding, “Yes”, you need to update your profile right away.
Simply because social networking sites allow you to share information about your interests and other personal information, it doesn’t mean that you necessarily need to fill in all of these fields. If an interest, political or religious affiliation, or other personal information may be viewed as controversial, you may want to either remove them from your public page or set up a separate page for your online marketing business. If you choose the latter solution, make sure that you only share more personal details with people who you have entrusted to become part of your inner circle.
Edit Any Out of Date Information
Lastly, you’ll want to make sure that the information on your social network profiles is up to date. It’s a good idea to make a point of visiting them every so often to insure that you don’t have old information posted on them. This is especially important if you’re using professional networking sites such as LinkedIn as part of your online marketing efforts.
Social networking sites can be used to help grow your business very effectively. To get the maximum benefit from them, you will need to ensure that your social profiles reflect the type of information you want shared with the public.