If a Price Falls in Your Showroom and Nobody Knows About It, Will it Make a Sale?

By Elizabeth Round, Village Home Stores

When it comes to online content, I am a firm believer in putting the work in for a better long-term result.

A big payoff with this is claiming your brand on relevant social media platforms and setting up your profile. Granted, nobody has free time or downtime at a small business. There is always something that can be done, and it is probably no different at your store.

But my big ask with this column is to make setting up a few profiles a priority right now. Scheduling time this week to set up a basic profile on a few new platforms is a sound investment. Every online profile you claim and create is another place to spotlight your store name, services, hours, phone number and address. Plus, you don’t want someone else to claim your brand’s name on a platform. You must put the work in to get a mix of social channels set up so you can just drop in with fresh content from time to time.

Repurpose Content on Multiple Platforms

Are you only posting to a Facebook page and praying tens of people will hopefully see that post? I can relate! Organic reach on Facebook is not what it used to be. Frankly, it stinks. So still post to Facebook … but also repurpose that post in other places online. Give your content the chance it deserves to be seen by your potential customers.

An example of this is the kind of mileage you can get from short-form, vertical video clips. Here is a tale of two 15-second videos:

Video 1: Once upon a time, a small business made a short video natively within TikTok and posted it to platform. The end.

Video 2: Once upon a time, a small business made a short video using a simple video-editing app and uploaded it to TikTok. Next, they uploaded that same video to their Instagram Reels, Instagram Stories, Facebook and Pinterest accounts, and uploaded it to YouTube shorts. Now that same 15-second video is set up for success on multiple platforms (and without the TikTok watermark all over it). One video, rolled out over many platforms, but it is still just that same single 15-second clip you started with.

You cannot win the lottery if you never buy a ticket, and you cannot bowl a strike unless you set up the pins. Put in a few minutes today to set up a profile so that when you are sitting on a great post, you can just drop in to drop it off.

The Three Basics of a Social Profile

Rule No. 1: When available, use your brand’s full name and a clear logo as your username/profile image. This saves you the trouble of including that information in the text of each post.

Rule No. 2: In the description of your profile give a clear message about who you are, what you do and where you can be found. If you do not plan to be very active on that social channel, direct users to find you where you are active.

Rule No. 3: Most platforms do not allow lots of links that send people off their platform. But you may have at least one link option, so be sure to use it. There are many link menu apps and programs available to connect audiences to all of your content with just one link. I use a free one called Linktree for the Village Home Stores Instagram link.

Some Platforms to Consider

Not all social channels are relevant to our industry or make sense for us to post on. A few that may be worth considering for your brand, using a basic profile set up, include Google My Business, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter and Houzz. Sites like Google My Business and Houzz can be worth taking the time to set up just to be sure that your information is correct and easy to find for interested customers searching for your services online. Your best bet to setting up a great profile on any of these platforms is to head to YouTube and find a current video explaining best practices for each channel.

Social media changes every second. Profile features and character limits in descriptions change too. Take the time to set up those pins today, so that the next time you are sitting on a great piece of content, you can roll it straight across the Internet for a strike.

 Elizabeth Round is the marketing manager and host of a local TV show for BrandSource member Village Home Stores in Geneseo, Ill.

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