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Welcome to Compass!

There's a lot of information here, and it can seem a little overwhelming. Take it one step at a time, and you'll be fine. The first step, is getting set up. 

The first thing you need to decide is which channels you want to have accounts on. We hear a lot "my cousin said I should be on Instagram," "what about LinkedIn?" 

Resources: Demographics | Account Round Up | Tracking

What social channels should I be on?

The answer depends on who your prospective and current customers are. (Demographic info)

  • Facebook - 80% of online American adults use Facebook, probably should have a page.

  • Google+ - Google+ is great for SEO, but you won't see a lot of engagement (basically none).

  • Instagram - Instagram is considered "the millennial" social media platform. You need to source images of your products/services, from either customers or professional photographers, and you need lots of them.

  • LinkedIn - The largest social media network for professionals, it's great for thought leadership and B2B sales. More than 60% of users make over $75,000/year.

  • Pinterest - It's THE platform for inspiration and DIYs, think remodeling your dream kitchen and your dream wedding. 70% of users are over 30 women.

Once you decide which platforms your business should be on, we need to get all of your accounts created and set-up. If you already have accounts, we need to make sure that you have all of the log-in information. Honestly, this part isn't really fun, and it's kind of a pain. But we have to do it.

Get Ready. Get Set. Get Social.

  • Ensure that you have the log-ins and passwords to all of your accounts.

  • Remove anyone that shouldn't have access and add anyone who should have access.

  • If someone leaves your employ, you'll want to make sure you remove them from your accounts as part of your off-boarding process.

  • Check all of your accounts for correct hours, website information, and current logos. (Get image sizes)

  • Here is a handy guide to help you track what you've updated - Resource.

Whew! Okay. That's kind of a pain in the butt. But once you make it through, we move on to the fun part - it's time to get posting!

Daily Due Diligence

  • You can get your monthly posting map here.

  • If you're new to posting, don't think you have to post everything. Pick two or three each week and post those. If there's something that doesn't seem to be a fit for your business, it's okay, just skip it.

  • We recommend taking a couple of hours each week to do all of your graphics and posts and get them scheduled. Set it, and forget it! If you need help with scheduling - we recommend a social media scheduling platform, like HootSuite.

Let's troubleshoot a few things now. The next big hiccup that people have is what to do about images. You're not a graphic designer - where are these things going to come from?

Posts

  • Your posts should be short and to the point, people have short attention spans: 150 - 180 characters is plenty. If it's longer than that, make it a blog and create a social post that links to it.

Images + Graphics

  • All social channels have different maximum specs for their images. For ease of creation, we have found that the size that works on most platforms is 1024x512 pixels, this means that you can create one image to post to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. (except for Instagram, those are best square, larger than 600x600 pixels).

  • In general, you should assume that all images are protected by copyright. There are a number of sources for copyright-free images for commercial purposes: Pixabay.com, Pexels.com, and Freepik.com.

  • For simple images, like images with your logo on them, or quotes over pictures, we recommend: Canva.com and PicMonkey.

  • Don't forget to put your logo on your images!

Other questions? Here are some additional resources.