A few years ago when you started your MSP, you set yourself up on all of the popular social media platforms in good faith that you’d figure it all out someday… but so far, “someday” hasn’t happened.  Since setting those profiles up, you’ve somehow managed to collect a handful of unfamiliar followers but that’s as far as it’s gone.  And yet, you seem totally content with that whole scenario for some reason.

**SLAP**  WAKE UP!!

This is TERRIBLE and making you look ridiculous online. Search engines are laughing at you and if you don’t rectify this tragic SNAFU, you’ll definitely be hurting…

Let’s back this story up…  Chances are you or your (millennial aged) assistant signed up for Twitter or some other social media account a few years back when you first launched your business.  You know… when you had all the enthusiasm in the world and were willing to invest in everything and swore you’d learn how to be a marketing ninja… until you didn’t.

While this is a typical story that I see multiple times a day, it’s not “OK”.  Social profiles either hurt your overall online presence or they add value. There is no idling in the middle. And, as a business and brand, you’ve got to protect your digital reputation as you would protect your checking account pin number.  I say this in all seriousness because it’s incredibly hard to clean up a tarnished, stale or misbranded reputation with serious repercussions.  You desperately need your online footprint when it comes to advertising online or putting any effort into organically developing your audience.

Let’s face it: local businesses rely heavily on local search algorithms to gain online visibility and gain warm leads. 

That lonely account is depreciating your digital net worth and affecting your overall SEO status.  When we don’t use our social accounts, even for a short while, search engines quickly assume we fell into the black abyss and died. We start sliding down the search results page until we stop showing up altogether.

The really great news is that this is true for the opposite direction as well. The more engaged we are online, the more trust and value search engine algorithms put into our overall authenticity. If you’re not in a space to invest time and energy towards social media and don’t want to risk earning a bad rap, stay neutral all together and remove the accounts that you don’t use. If it doesn’t exist, it won’t affect you.  I promise!!