Image is everything. So is perception. Therefore, besides:
- Having a strategy
- Offering fresh and compelling information
- Staying engaged with your followers
central to your social media success is looking good. It is of course “what’s inside that counts” at the end of the day, but superficiality can be under-rated.
Step away for a minute from the virtual world into the other alleged reality: the one with three dimensions. Picture yourself standing at a well-attended industry seminar, full of potential clients and a disproportionate quantity of your competitors. For level playing field’s sake, let’s say you’re a Realtor.
You scan the crowd at the cocktail reception. By your count of name badges, the ratio of blood-thirsty agents to home buyers is 10:1.
Between the decimated all-you-can-eat shrimp buffet and the open bar that is three deep, begins the traditional rite of business card swapping. And there you stand… enjoying a great conversation with a hot prospect as you hand over your Vistaprint special.
Along with the too small font and the colors that are several shades shy of your logo’s actual PMS color, you top this marketing collateral sideshow with an economy texture that screams you got 5000 of them for $30. Such a deal? Just because they came with a few refrigerator magnets and a package of branded Post-It notes thrown in?!
Meanwhile, your nemesis (always a few sales awards and several Louboutin-clad steps ahead of you) slides a sleek card from a stunning case. She seems successful, golden; and you are back in the 5th grade being the last kid picked for dodge ball.
That elegantly designed and impeccably crafted card was her passport. Even if you can run insane rings around this Realtor, it won’t “look” that way to the Fabulously Wealthy Oil Tycoon Investor from Texas. On a subliminal level you’ll look like the chubby kid in the gym – standing solo and center stage.
I believe I am being clear by overstating the abundantly obvious. You need to appear as if you have your act together, even when you do.
So let’s transition back to our virtual world, where the same rules apply.
- How do you look?
- How is your business perceived by visitors?
Besides ignoring best practices and subscribing to platforms inappropriate for your business, not conforming to image-sizing standards on social media is probably in the top five of your worst marketing offenses.
A crappy little JPEG of your logo or a scrap of a low-res photo cropped in a variety of sizes and shapes and crammed into headers, profile photos, thumbnails and newsfeeds is not the answer.
Take Facebook’s profile picture for example…for many users it is swapped out pretty frequently: to commemorate a cause, celebrate a holiday, participate in the flavor of the day, showcase a treasured friendship.
Located on the lower left-hand side of the banner, it is of course the image that shows up next to anything on which you comment and post. That image should be 180 x 180 pixels at minimum. However, as of this writing, it will show on the page as 160 x 160 pixels and wherever you post as 32 x 32.
On Google+ your profile pic should not only be weighing in at a recommended 250 x 250 pixels, Google, (who typically does whatever the hell she wants to anyway), will take that image you uploaded in a square format and render it as a circular one.
You’ll therefore want to upload an image that is framed appropriately so it doesn’t cut off a design element you want noticeably displayed.
The limelight at the end of the tunnel? Take the time to review our amazing social media sizing guide. It will update you with the platform specs on which our businesses stand.
While there’s no end to the creativity you can unleash on social media, a touch of conformity will assuredly take you places.
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