There is more to launching a social media presence than meets the eye. Through the process of getting Telaeris online with social media, I discovered many things I didn’t know, but wish I had. Knowing even the most simple (and not so simple) things can save you precious time. So to help you and your business get online faster, here are my tips.

1. Facebook: Use your company logo, slogan, or recognizable image as the picture for your company page (not profile or group.) This logo will appear over and over again on all of the social networking sites, so make sure it’s a good one. Having a page is all about attracting ‘likes.’ Give your fans some incentive to like your page by leveraging a fans-only page. This can be done simply with the Static HTML: iframe tabs app. It allows you to design two different views: one for non-fans and one for fans. Non-fans should see something that will entice them to like your page. By liking your page they will be able to see more content, get exclusive deals, and maybe free stuff. You can see the non-fan view for Telaeris’ Facebook page here (and ‘like’ it to see the fans only page!)  This video tutorial was also very helpful.

2. Twitter: Use the same logo from your Facebook page as your thumbnail for Twitter to keep your branding consistent. Next, you need a background. You can see that the Twitter background I made for Telaeris is more on the informational side. People who have never heard us can immediately get a sense of what we do. The user can see a barcode and RFID tag, a mobile device, and a short description of our services. Getting the dimensions right was the hard part. To anyone who has ever tried to make their own background, you know that the same background is not going to look the same on every screen. What will work for people using a standard 800×600 screen ratio might not look correct for those viewing it on their widescreen laptops. To ensure that the most people correctly see my background, I designed my background to fit 1915 x 1000 pixels – you can download our Twitter background here if you want to take a look at it.  This video was also a big help.

3. YouTube: That background you just created for Twitter? The same one is going on your company’s YouTube page. The big difference is that the background is stationary on the Twitter pages, and with YouTube, the background moves as you scroll. Simply convert your Twitter background to 1280 x 1890 pixels to solve this. You can see Telaeris’ YouTube Channel here and you can download our YouTube background here.

4. WordPress: Getting a WordPress blog up was pretty simple. What took me the most time was customizing it to how I wanted it. WordPress on its own is a blank slate and my boss wanted to incorporate a Twitter feed, links to our other social networking sites, and a way for readers to share our posts. To help you out, here are the plugins and widgets I found to be the best for integrating social media into WordPress.

• DP Twitter Widget: The cleanest one I found and will look great with any WordPress theme. Also, be sure to add a “follow” button directly to you page so visitors do not need to navigate away from your page to become a follower.
• Social Profiles Widget: Allows you to choose which sites to show, the size of the icons, and has clean graphics.
• AddThis Social Bookmarking Widget: Simply type the names of which social media channels you want to be available. Very customizable and if you register you can track how your blog articles are being shared.
• MobilePress Plugin: This will optimize your blog for mobile phones, and also uses SEO for mobile search engines.

5. LinkedIn: You must have a personal LinkedIn profile before you can create a company profile, so if you don’t have one, its time to get one. Through the company page, you can list your products and services. Be sure to integrate your LinkedIn page with all of the above: Twitter feed, YouTube channel, and WordPress blog.

Regardless whether this is a team effort or just a one-woman-show, investing in Hootsuite or something similar will make your life a lot easier. So get out there and start generating content, sharing, and connecting. Good luck and happy socializing!