What To Do On The Day You Create A Social Media Account

Just a few years ago, this blog post would have been unnecessary. I am talking about the time when MySpace fell to Facebook. Social media wasn’t a buzzword yet. In those days, it was just Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Those were the three top social networks.

Less than a decade ago, comparing those top three social networks with any other social network was like comparing a boulder to a pebble.

Now we’ve got Pinterest, Instagram, Blab, and Periscope, just to name a few. Each of these social networks is #1 at something. In one blog post, you can discover how much better Pinterest is than Facebook. In another blog post, you can discover how much better Facebook is than Pinterest. They have different qualities and millions of users.

For us, this means three things:

1. Brace yourselves. More social networks are on the way!
2. New opportunities
3. You have to create accounts for those social networks

The third thing is what this blog post is about. How many times have you heard that you need to start using Instagram? How many times have you heard that you need to start using Pinterest? If you haven’t heard it yet, how many times do you think you will get told to start using Periscope?

Whether you use these social networks or not is up to you. What isn’t up to you is that if you want to use a social network, you must create an account for that social network. After you verify your email address and have your account set up, here’s what you need to do:

Make Your Account Look Nice Right From The Start

There are few Twitter avatars worse than the egg. There are few Pinterest avatars worse than the white pin in the red background. There are few Facebook avatars worse than the faceless person in the blue-gray background. These are all default pictures that make your account look bad.

The avatar is the first thing you must change when you create a social media account. But what you choose for your avatar is just as important as changing the default.

The best avatar to use is the avatar that you have been using for your other social networks. All of my social media profiles have the same avatar picture, and that is by design. People remember a face easier than they remember a name.

Since I use the same avatar on all of my social networks, it is easier for my Twitter followers to make the connection when they see my YouTube channel. If my Twitter avatar pictures was of a rainforest and my YouTube avatar was of a volcano, it would be difficult for people to identify the two accounts with the same person.

That’s why I use the same avatar for my social networks. However, I don’t just use any avatar. I use an avatar that shows me. I don’t get a cool picture of nature from Google and make that my picture. I want people to see a face behind the content. When people see a face and associate that face with your content, those people will have an easier time remembering you and your content.

Some social networks also allow you to provide a background picture. Your background picture should let people know more about you from a personal or professional standpoint. In my background pictures, I lean towards the professional side.

While it is possible for you to use Google and get a picture, virtually none of those pictures will be the one that perfectly defines you. There are two ways to get a picture that perfectly defines you (okay fine. Close to perfect):

1. Create the picture yourself using Canva (a free tool on the internet that I’d recommend to anyone)
2. Hire a freelancer to create the picture for you (you can get a freelancer to do the job for $5 on Fiverr)

Before you create the picture or hire a freelancer, make sure you know the dimensions of a background picture. The social networks are not uniform. The dimensions for a background picture on Facebook are completely different from the dimensions for a background picture on Twitter.

Not all social networks utilize a background picture. However, if the social network you create an account for includes a background picture on your profile, make sure the background picture is nice. Since you just created the social media account, you would be fine if it took you 1-7 days to come up with an awesome background picture. Even beyond the seven days, it isn’t the end of the world if you don’t have an awesome background picture.

But the avatar is paramount. Changing the avatar must be one of the first steps you take after you create a new social media account.

Writing The Bio

An effective social media bio lists all of your accomplishments and workload that you fit into that bio. The best social media bios are typically sentence fragments—a bunch of words separated by commas. No conjugations (and, or, but) and definitely no period at the end of your bio.

This blog post explores more methods to crafting an effective social media bio.

Send Out A Massive Amount Of Posts

When you have no audience, you won’t annoy anyone if you post five times per minute. For some social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, you can easily send valuable posts. All you do is post a relevant, valuable article, and then you’re done. Publishing 20 of those types of posts in one day would give your new followers content to look at when they go to your profile.

Think about it this way. Would a Twitter account be more attractive if it had 0 tweets or if it had 1,000 tweets?

Create A Strategy

Once you get more comfortable with the social network you are on, the next step is to create a strategy. How will you achieve growth? What type of growth are you looking for? What type of experience will you provide for your audience? How will you build relationships on that social network?

Those four questions form a strategy. Getting better answers to those questions requires that you learn more about the social network you are using. Social media experts like to write blog posts about the newer social networks since they’re hot.

I wrote a few about Periscope right when it came out. I wasn’t alone. I have read numerous blog posts about Periscope (FYI: if you want to learn about Periscope, then Kim Garst is your gal).

To learn more about the social network you are using, you must read numerous blog posts about it. The more knowledge you absorb, the stronger your strategy will be.

In Conclusion

Creating an account on a social network can be an exciting experience. The powers of socializing and opportunities increase with every social network that gets created. Periscope defied the rules by giving anyone the power to live stream. I like to think of a Periscope account as your own TV channel.

It’s exciting to think about the opportunities, but to fully utilize those opportunities, you must learn from the experts and experiment on your own. The experts become experts by experimenting and then discovering what works.

Remember when it was just Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube? The party’s gotten a lot bigger since then.

What do you advise we do when we create new social media accounts? Did one of these tips resonate with you the most? Which social network did you most recently create an account on? Sound off in the comments section below.