Custom Landing Pages for Social Network Profiles

December 23rd, 2008 · No Comments -

Photo Credits: Tony George

All social networks are not created equal. While we normally use different social networks, the way we use them is different. We use Facebook mostly to connect with friends, LinkedIn for our professional networking, and Twitter… well, there are hundreds of ways to use Twitter.

This being the case, wouldn’t it make sense to create specific welcome pages on your blog, tailored to visitors from each specific social network? By linking your different social network profiles to the appropriate welcome page (instead of linking to your homepage) you have the opportunity to highlight how you can best help those visitors, and what they can expect by interacting with you.

I will soon start creating welcome pages on my blog for the four social networks I use the most: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Amazon (reviews). These are some of the things I may do with those pages:

Twitter:

Explain that I use Twitter mainly to interact with other bloggers in the marketing and branding fields, but that occasionally I also tweet about other topics, like personal finance, cars, food and travel.
Include links to posts on my blog that give tips on how to use Twitter.
Briefly explain my Twitter style and posting frequency.
Explain that I have added “Twit This” buttons to my blog posts to make them easy to share on Twitter.
Include links to useful Twitter resources on other blogs .
Link to my del.icio.us bookmarks about Twitter.

(updated 12-28-08: I’ve already created my Twitter landing page).

LinkedIn:

Offer a more detailed explanation of my skills, experience, interests and values than what can be found in LinkedIn.
Include a link to my résumé on PDF.
Include a specific paragraph for head hunters asking them to feel free to contact me if they are looking for someone in my field (even if I am not interested I may know somebody who is, and that way I can help both the head hunter and my friends).
Links to my portfolio (videos, slideshare presentations, etc.).
Links to posts on my blog that give tips on how to use LinkedIn.

Facebook:

Explain that I use Facebook to interact with friends from many different places: from school, from work, from the web, etc.
Explain that I’m originally from Peru, where many of my friends are also from, so that visitors understand why they may sometimes find content written in Spanish.
Tell visitors that they can read my latest blog posts in Facebook by clicking on the “Notes” tab.
Tell visitors that they can also read my “tweets” on my wall (Facebook imports them automatically).
Indicate what topics I’m mostly interested in, so that users that have created Groups or Pages can ask me to join or become a fan.
Ask Friends if they know any common acquaintances that are also on Facebook so that I can contact them and add them to my Friends list.

Amazon (for reviews):

List the topics that interest me to do book reviews.
Contact information and address, for publishers and authors who want to send me books for review.
My reviewing style, and the fact that I can’t guarantee a positive review.
Links to the Book Reviews section of my blog, so they can read my other reviews.
Link to an article I once wrote, about How to Write a Book Review.

You may participate in other social media sites that are not listed here, however, you can use the same approach to create landing pages for them too.

(The idea for this post came from an article by David Meerman Scott where he talks about the concept of persona-focused website marketing).