With 4.5 billion people using social media daily, it’s a great tool to implement for your business. It can be a daunting task to set up business profiles across each channel whilst trying to keep your business branding consistent. We’ve set up a guide below to help you prep all the materials you will need to get your business pages up and running smoothly.

Contents
1. Facebook
2. Instagram
3. Linkedin
4. Twitter
5. Pinterest

Facebook

Facebook is the most widely used social media platform with over 2.32 billion users monthly. Being the world’s most popular social media platform makes Facebook an incredibly powerful marketing tool, where you can gather lots of information and find potential customers. Facebook allows you to reach out and interact with your customers and make a personal connection. People buy from businesses they trust so creating a personal connection with your potential customer is an important part of the sales journey.

Note: It is against Facebook’s T&Cs to use your personal account for promotion or personal gain, if you want to promote your business creating a business page is essential.

Assets:

• Profile Photo 170 x 170 px PNG or JPG file.
  Generally, businesses use their logo 
• Cover Photo 820 x 312 px PNG or JPG file
• Page Name
• Location
• Business Summary: A couple of paragraphs describing what your business is/does.
• Hours of operation
• Type of business
• CTA (Call To Action) button. Facebook allows business pages to have a call to action on their pages. This turns your Facebook business page into a landing page where customers can take the desired action once they reach the page. For example, the Northwood Studio CTA on it’s Facebook page displays a “Learn More” button that when clicked, takes you to our website.

Facebook allows you options such as:
Book with you – users can book an appointment or request a quote.
Contact you – users can get in touch with you using your preferred method (Facebook messenger, calling, signup, email or What’s App).
Learn more about your business – you can link to a website or video to give users more information about your business.
Shop with you – link users to your shop, offer gift card purchase or allow them to view offers.
Download your app or play your game – allow users to download an app or play a game.

How to set up a business account on Facebook

1. Login to your Facebook account and go to facebook.com/pages/create
2. Select the type of page you want, from either Business or Brand, OR Community or Public Figure.
3. Enter your page name and then select a category. In the category field, you can type a few words that describe your business and Facebook will suggest categories for you.
4. Once you’ve selected your category Facebook will ask for more business information like your address and phone number. Fill this out and when you’re ready click continue.
5. Update any profile and cover images and start posting to Facebook.

Instagram

Instagram is a visual-based platform where people share images and videos. Instagram is a great place to promote your product or service in a visual way and attract potential customers. A lot of businesses also use Instagram to show behind the scenes shots of their company and build a personal connection with their followers. Instagram offers the choice of a personal account or a business account. Switching to a business account on Instagram gives you access to a whole range of tools that can benefit your business. With an Instagram business account you can access; Instagram analytics, promote Instagram posts, add links to Instagram stories, add call to action buttons on your profile (such as a Call or Email button).

Before setting up a business account on Instagram you need to make sure your business account on Facebook is set up correctly and the information is up to date. Because Instagram is owned by Facebook the two will essentially work together.

Assets:

• Profile Photo 160 x 160 px. Businesses generally use their logo, make sure the image is high resolution as Instagram users can’t click to enlarge the photo (as in Facebook).
• Business description. A description of what your business is/does business, this is limited to 150 words.
• URL, this is the only chance you’ll have to promote a linkable URL on Instagram so choose carefully! If you include them in your bio or post descriptions they will not take users to the page by clicking, they must be copied and pasted into a browser. You may want to point users to your website, a landing page, blogs or an email subscription form.

How to set up a business account on Instagram

1. Log into your account or signup for an Instagram account
2. Access your Account Setting from the menu in the top right-hand corner. 
3. Select Settings and scroll down to Account.
4. Scroll down to Switch to a Professional Account and select.
5. Choose from a Creator Account or a Business Account (Instagram gives you a brief description of what business type each option is suitable for).
6. Select a category to describe your business.

7.  If you have a Facebook business account created, connect it with your Instagram account. The information on your Facebook account will be taken across to your Instagram account so make sure all information is up to date.

8. Update business details such as location, phone number and email.

9. Update any profile and cover images and start posting to Instagram.

Linkedin

Linkedin is a B2B platform, used for professional development. It stands apart from other social platforms that are used in a more casual way of socialising. People typically use the platform for career development, industry-related discussions and connecting with other like-minded professionals.

You may have a personal account already set up on Linkedin, but adding a business page helps potential customers learn more about your business, services/products and job opportunities within your business.

To set up a business page you must meet a few requirements first:

• Your profile must be at least 7 days old.
• You must be listed as an employee, manager, or owner at the business you are creating a page for.
• Your profile must rank as Intermediate or All Star status. Your status can be found on the right-hand side of your profile. You can increase your status by filling out more of your profile information.
• Your email address needs to be unique to your business.

Assets:

• Profile Photo 300 x 300 px PNG or JPG file.
  Generally, businesses use their logo
• Cover Photo 1536 x 768 px 
• Company website URL
• Business Summary: A couple of paragraphs describing what your business is/does. Between 250 – 2000 characters

How to set up a business account on Linkedin

1. Head to https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/linkedin-pages and click the “Create your page” button.
2. Enter your business name then your business URL, then click “Create page”.
3. Fill out your business details and then click the “Publish” button to make your page live.
4. Update any profile and cover images and start posting to Linkedin.

Twitter

Twitter acts as a conversational platform. Users on Twitter openly communicate and it easy to create connections between community members. Twitter is a great platform for businesses to find a ton of audience insight on. With open conversations flowing through the platform this allows you as a business to find potential customers, engage with them, find pain points of your customer and pitch your product/service to solve these problems. It also works the other way for the customer. They are able to observe your “business voice”, see how you communicate with customers and gain a sense of your business’s morals.

Assets:

• Profile Photo 400 x 400 px PNG, JPG or GIF file.
  Generally, businesses use their logo
• Cover Photo 1500 x 500 px 
• Business Summary: Description of what your business is/does. You can include keywords and/or URL. Max 160 characters

How to set up a business account on Twitter

1. Sign up for Twitter and select your business name and phone number.
   
2. Once you’ve entered your phone number and you will receive a verification code. Use this code to verify your account.
   
3. Choose your account username.
   
4. Select whether you want to import data and follow suggested users.
5. Confirm your email address and then fill out the personal details for your account.
6. Update any profile and cover images and start posting to Twitter.

Pinterest

Pinterest is a visual-based platform where people search for inspiration and ideas. Users “pin” images on Pinterest to save them to a virtual board. Boards give users a way to quickly and easily locate images they have previously pinned. Pins can also link to URLs, making Pinterest a great platform for driving traffic to websites, online stores or blogs.

Pinterest is a visual search engine and just like all other search engines, keywords are how you get discovered. Do your keyword research and make sure you’re using your keywords in your company, board, pins, pin names and descriptions. Using hashtags is also a good way to gain followers as people can follow their favourite hashtags to see related content.

Assets:

• Profile Photo 150 x 150 px PNG or JPG file.
  Generally, businesses use their logo
• Business Summary: Description of what your business is/does. Try to include your keywords here.
• Business location
• Website URL

How to set up a business account on Pinterest

1. Select the drop-down arrow in the right-hand corner and select “Add a free business account”.
2. Click the Get Started button on the pop up to start setting up your business account.
3. Follow the prompts to set up your new account.  Add your business name and details. Add your business email. Link to your website.
4. Select whether you are interested in running ads on Pinterest or not.
   
5. Select how to get started from the options listed below.
6. Fill out details about your business so that people can gain an understanding of your business when they visit your profile.
7. Update any profile and cover images and start posting to Pinterest.
   
   If you wish to create a Pinterest business account separate too your personal account go to this link pinterest.com/business/create/ and sign up then create your account.