Today’s question from Ask DiamondLinks is: “What is the most popular social media platform for reputation management?”
Remove Personal Feelings For Specific Platforms
In order to answer this question we have to remove our personal enjoyment or dislike for specific social media platforms. If you love TikTok or hate Instagram… it’s irrelevant.
That’s because Online Reputation Management does not care about your personal preference. It cares about what platforms show up in the search results when searching your name or business name.
So what social media platforms does Google typically show in results?
The 3½ Best Social Media Platforms For ORM
1. LinkedIn
Coming in first is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is an absolute necessity for individual or personal reputation management as it usually ranks for your name. If you go and Google your name right now, you will almost certainly see LinkedIn on the first page.
Go ahead and open a new tab and Google any name. For just about everybody, you’ll find LinkedIn on the first page.
2. Facebook
Facebook is a close second to LinkedIn, but a definite second. You’ll usually find Facebook pages in the results, but depending on the uniqueness of your name you may see Facebook has multiple individual profiles.
Because of this, Facebook is not a great landing page. Facebook is more of what we call a “neutral”. It’s not positive. It’s not negative. It’s just somewhere in the middle.
3. Twitter
Far down the list behind LinkedIn and Facebook is Twitter. Twitter is a bit trickier than the other platforms. While all social media platforms need some on-going attention, there’s a few unique quirks to Twitter:
- Twitter relies heavily on frequent engagement.
- Interaction between users requires more posting on your end.
- Following other users and gaining followers in return is part of connecting and building your Twitter presence.
These are just a few reasons why the platform involves more frequent and consistent work that is not always necessary with LinkedIn and Facebook.
3½. Instagram
Instagram gets a 3½ because sometimes it ranks, but this occurrence is more rare than LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
If a client wants to have an Instagram account we’ll create it for them. However, if they are not going to use it, we recommend not making it a big part of their ORM strategy.
If a client is already using Instagram, then their account can sometimes start to rank in the results. If they already have followers, history and engagement, there’s a chance that Instagram is already on page two or three of the search results. In this scenario, through good link building, the account could potentially be pushed up higher in the search results.
Securing Social Media Accounts/URLs
Regardless of whether you plan to utilize certain social media accounts now or in the future, it is a smart idea to go ahead and secure an exact match URL/username.
For example, even if you do not plan to use Instagram, go ahead and register an account with your name: “Instagram.com/yourname”.
Securing exact match social media accounts can potentially benefit your ORM down the road.
Optimizing The Top Platform: LinkedIn
Now that we’ve gone through the 3½ best social media platforms for ORM, let’s focus on optimizing the #1 platform: LinkedIn.
We recommend you fill out everything you possibly can on LinkedIn, including your work history, education, biography and wherever else you can add content.
Another tip is to connect with more than 500 individuals. Did you know when looking at your public facing LinkedIn profile, you’ll see that it shows your number of connections up to 500? After you hit 500 followers it only shows “500+”.
Our suggestion is to get to a minimum of 501 connections. After you hit this number, you can continue to connect if you desire, but for ORM purposes you can stop and maintain your number of connections.
These two suggestions will help your LinkedIn standout, which especially comes in handy if you have a more common name.
What social media platforms show up when you search your name or business name? Not happy with the results? Reach out to DiamondLinks today for your Online Reputation Management needs!
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