Your social media profiles - in 2020 more than ever - are often the first impression of potential clients, patients, partnerships, relationships (hello, you), or employment. It serves as a personal recommendation or background check and it’s time to get the world wide web on your side.

Here are 6 steps you can take in the next week to give your social media a facelift that will have heads turning.

1. Do the behind-the-scenes work.

Answer the following questions with as much clarity as you can to kick your 2020 social media resolutions off with a bang. For more on positioning yourself as a brand head over to last month’s article for a deeper look.

What do you want to be known for?

Is the goal to position yourself as a mentor to a younger generation, be an intellectual leader in your space, be seen as a family-friendly practice, or simply to be more present in your online community?

Which social media platforms do you want to focus on?

Attempting to keep up on #allthethings just for the sake of #allthethings will lead to burnout - there is just not enough time in the day to post on each platform in the way that platform wants to be treated. Choose the platforms you see the most engagement with and find the most enjoyment in – pour your energy into those.

What problem are you trying to solve?

Adding value to your audience is not only a beautiful life practice but an invaluable business tactic as well. Let this operate as a lens through which you post - what problems can you solve and how are you planning to do it?

2. Create your ideal client persona.

The more people you’re speaking to, the more you're becoming noise.

An ideal client persona is someone you can focus on in your mind’s eye when creating content. Is it a young mom of 4 with a 9-5 career? A gentleman from the baby-boomer generation? Teenagers of an affluent high school, or a busy elderly woman managing a dance troupe in her community? Knowing who you’re talking to will give you insight into the pain points you can speak to, problems you can solve, and triumphs you can highlight - all leading back to how you can be the answer they’re looking for.

Let me show you an example; you’re scrolling and come across a photo of a happy, smiling patient talking to a happy, smiling dentist. The caption reads “We can’t wait to meet you, call us for an appointment today!” What do you think? Sure, you can see they’re friendly, you can understand they want you to call, maybe you can see the space is clean, but that’s about it.

Same scenario, but the caption reads “Are you leaving work at 5:00 to pick your kids up from school and race them to the dentist before they close? We’ve got you covered. We have Saturday appointments available for busy families and would love to serve yours. Click this link to choose the appointment time that works best so you can get back to your weekend!”

I’m a busy mom and you better believe the latter version spoke to my pain point (no time during the week), solved my problem (Saturday appointments), and even gave me a little bit of hope (I can still enjoy my weekend). I’m all about that practice. I want to be their best friend. And buy them donuts. Maybe leave my kids there for the rest of that weekend. You get the gist.

Don’t try to be everything for everyone, find your people and start connecting the dots for them.

3. Update your social media bio to be personable and professional.

Be personal, be relatable, but be professional. Your bio doesn’t need to read like a resume, but a blank space or mixture of emojis doesn’t help much either. Be clear about who you are, using your name or the name of your business with a focused one-liner “elevator pitch” that can quickly explain what you do in a descriptive, digestible way.

For example,

Studio 8E8 - Dental Marketing Agency

A team of architects and creatives building successful brands through custom, digital marketing to tell your story well.

Quick, snappy, understandable, engaging.

4. Coordinate and simplify your profiles.

If you’re still using that MySpace mirror selfie, cease and desist. Use an updated headshot with concise copy and a clear call-to-action on each platform you’re tackling. The more streamlined your introduction is, the easier it will be for those ideal clients to find you and for your current clients to refer others to you .

5. Choose well-rounded categories and post consistently.

For consistency as well as personal sanity, brainstorm 3-5 categories you’d like to post about and let your content fall under those. Your categories should be both specific to your industry and adding personality to your brand. If you’re a retired, traveling speaker in the dental space focused on educating practices to grow their teams well, you could let your categories rest under leadership advice, dentistry, travel tips, work-life balance, and your secret weekend passion: scuba diving.

Creating categories will give you direction on what to post if you’re stuck and help you think creatively to bring interest to your brand. If you learned something from your scuba instructor that applies to leading a practice well, share it. If you spent the weekend unplugging to be with your family and realized how much better you served come Monday, share it.

While choosing categories, be sure to add in some that highlight your services, reviews, and fun things now and then. Your audience finds worth in who you are as well as what you do - here are some examples of what you can post on a practical level going off of patient reviews, holidays, or copy on your website.

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6. Declutter your feeds.

Spring cleaning is all about getting rid of the excess, the noise, the space that’s being rented to people and things that are not adding value to your life.

-Leave inactive Facebook groups

-Unfollow unrelatable accounts

-Run through your albums, highlights, and any elevated content such as pinned posts or featured blogs to be sure they’re up-to-date, relevant, and attracting your ideal client.

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Social media is a great place to share your personal life, and if that’s your goal, great.

But if the answer to those first few questions goes deeper, it’s time to up-level your engagement and presentation on social media to build your business, brand, and contribution to the community.

There’s a handy dandy checklist for you below for that check-off-all-the-boxes feeling!

Grab a broom, the mop, and some Lysol and let’s get to work.‍

If social media is a pain point for your business or your practice, 2020 is the year to ramp it up. Ask us how.