Easy (and free) ways to enhance your social media


With so many marketing channels to manage, keeping on top of your social media can feel daunting and time-consuming, but with a little effort it is definitely worth it.

You should consider your social media profiles to be additional landing pages for your business. Having a presence on social media channels increases your presence on Google – which is never a bad thing. However, if a customer was to discover your business in this way, would you be happy with how your social media channels represent you?

One of the best things about social media marketing is that despite their ever-evolving nature, there are lots of ‘quick wins’ and missed opportunities that you can make the most of for free. Why not dedicate an afternoon to updating your profiles and test out our top tips below?…

Invite to ‘Like’

Today, success on Facebook is measured in reach and engagement rather than ‘likes’. However, gathering new fans will always be worthwhile – you just need to capture their engagement sharpish!

Check your notifications and look out for ‘Joe Bloggs and Sam Smith like your video. Help them see future posts by inviting them to like your page’. These are often so common that they get ignored – but we already know that these people are engaged with your brand, making them incredibly valuable assets. So next time, click on your reactions count and one-by-one invite them to like your page.

Find your perfect template

Facebook is no longer a case of ‘one size fits all’. There are now lots of different templates to choose from within your settings – and it’s so easy to switch. To find the right one for you, click ‘templates and tabs’ from the left-hand menu. Here you’ll find a guide to the templates available which range from services to shops and even politicians.

Best of all, once you’ve found the layout to suit your business, you can re-order your tabs and even toggle them off if you don’t intend to use them. Once you’re happy, don’t forget to return to your profile page to start populating any exciting new tabs.

Extra links on Instagram

For businesses, one of the most frustrating parts of Instagram is the limitation of links. As you’ll probably have discovered, links within captions don’t work (hence ‘link in bio’), but there’s only room for a single link there too.

If your business would benefit from more, check out Linktree. You can sign up for an account for free and it’s surprisingly easy to set up. Create a profile with your business name and type, then start adding your key links – for example, your homepage, a competition, product categories, service types or menus.

The downside of course is that it’s a less direct route for website traffic and does add an extra step for customers to navigate. However, despite this, we believe it actually improves customer journey through its simplicity.

Alt text

You may be familiar with alt text from your SEO, however it’s also a big deal on Instagram. Not only is it used for screen-readers (enabling visually-impaired users to access content) but it is also used by search engines.

At the moment, Instagram automatically add alt text to every image you upload. However, there is a way to write your own, enabling you to optimise it with keywords and phrases just like you would on your website.

When you reach the caption stage of uploading a new grid post, select advanced settings and scroll down to accessibility, where you can add your optimised alt text – easy!

Currently very few Instagram posts appear in SERPs, but it’s likely that they will do in time, so it’s good to get a step ahead! Also, Instagram are likely to favour optimised images within their own search and discover tables, so it’s a worthwhile exercise all-round.

YouTube transcripts

Similar to adding alt text on Instagram, providing transcripts of your video content is beneficial to both your SEO and your viewers. For example, transcripts ensure that those who are deaf or hard of hearing can still consume your content. They also make it more accessible to those with a language barrier.

With regards to SEO, Google bots can’t watch videos so transcripts enable them to crawl and index the content. The same applies for YouTube’s own search facility, which has over 30 million daily active users.

YouTube has some formatting tips to help you make the most of your transcript. But once it’s ready, it’s easy to upload. Simply click on your account and locate the video manager within Creator Studio. Edit the video in question and upload your file, with or without timing.

We hope we’ve given you a few ideas to enhance your social media profiles. We’ve only just scratched the surface and we’ll be sharing more social media marketing tips in future blog posts. If you need any help or advice with your social media management in the meantime, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Our Worcester-based team will be happy to help!