Spring Cleaning Checklist – Did You Remember Your Social Media Platforms?

June 16, 2020 | lora reuther

By: Lora Reuther

Like forgotten dust in your bedroom corner, all of our social media platforms have some nooks and crannies that could use a good spring cleaning…you’ve got a few days left to squeeze it in! The first thing you do when joining a social media platform is add your business’s bio and upload your best profile pic. And then, let’s face it – after that most of us jump right into sharing posts and never look back. Maybe it’s been a while since you reviewed your profile. Business hours change and header images get stale. Take some time this month to review your social media profiles and note things that could be spruced up. Here are a few items to look for:

At First Glance: The overall appearance of your profile might already be at the top of your radar, but it involves more than updating your profile pic. Dive a little deeper than a quick glance – review old posts, images and videos that have been shared, and read the copy, noting emojis and hashtags. Remove any outdated or inaccurate content. Do you see duplicate posts shared back to back on your profile by mistake? This can happen when using a post scheduler or automatically sharing posts from one platform to another. Delete those duplicates! Look for outdated URLs and any articles with links that no longer work. Blurry or pixelated images should be removed for a clean refresh. Take a look at the conversations and comments on each post noting any comments that need your attention and delete any that are fake or spam. Check to see if your profile image and headers are sized correctly. You can use Canva to find new header designs for inspiration.

About Us Information: Every social media platform has a section that explains who you are and provides important information about your business. While Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter only have a few lines for the bio compared to Facebook’s dedicated About Us page, it doesn’t hurt to review these platforms to make sure your information is up to date.

Where do you start? On each platform, check your business hours and contact information. Did a phone number change? Do you have a new contact info you’d like to share? Make sure your website link is correct. Review your bios and the “Our Story” section on Facebook. Maybe there have been new developments about your company since you last updated things. These might seem like obvious details, but they are easy to forget. If you uploaded a store menu or added products to Facebook and Instagram’s Shop Section, your product images or descriptions could be outdated and need freshening up.

One last detail to consider is your social media handles themselves. It’s important to try and have the same handle across all platforms. On Facebook your profile can exist without a handle so check to see if you need to add one if you haven’t already. If you’d like to change handles to something new this is the time to double check if your desired handles are available. And we’ve seen this more times than we’d like to admit but check the social media icons on your brand website to ensure that they are actually set up and link to the correct platform.

Team Member Roles: This one is important. Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn let you assign team member roles on your profile. If an employee has moved on and you forgot to remove their role from your profile you can update this. Go to your ‘Settings’ tab on Facebook and “Admin Tools” on LinkedIn and look for the “Page Roles” category. You can update their role or remove them here. Facebook also lets you display Team Members on your profile About page so it might be worth reviewing in case these roles have changed. If you shared any passwords in the past or haven’t revisited them in a while this is a good time to update them. It’s also great to consider if your current passwords are strong enough to ensure your accounts are secure. Many passwords use the company name, address, or year of establishment. Avoid these easy to remember passwords that are also easy to guess by bots. Use a series of letters and numbers and toss in a symbol or two. Try to update your passwords every few months and set up two-factor authorization for extra security.

Facebook Business Manager: If you manage your ads using Facebook Business Manager you might want to take a peek at your past campaigns. Facebook changes its policies often and ads that you ran a month or year ago might not be in line with Facebook’s new rules. We’ve seen manager accounts with ads flagged for violations that never had an issue while active. Leaving these ads on your account can result in your account being terminated. It’s recommended to save your campaign results and delete them from your account to avoid any issues in the future.

A social spring cleaning can be tedious and hard for those of us who are indecisive – to delete or not to delete? But let’s face it, it’s worth the time and effort. These are a few things you can do to improve your social media presence, but if you’re interested in diving even further, you can conduct a social media audit. This careful process will shine a light on what’s working and what can be improved. If you’d like help Orca Communications offers social audit packages that will work for your budget, contact us today to start the conversation.