Connecting Your Social Media Accounts

Linking your accounts to your digital card spares visitors searching for you among similarly named profiles and makes reaching you a single tap. But the governing rule here is the opposite of what most people expect: add the accounts you actually maintain and that serve your work, and remove everything else. An account dormant for a year does more harm than good, because it tells visitors your activity has stopped — an impression nothing else on the page corrects. How many links you can add depends on your plan: three on the free plan, ten on Pro, and fifteen or more on the shop plans.

Why a link beats naming the account

Writing "follow us: @ourhandle" might look sufficient. In practice it is not.

A visitor reading a handle has to open the app, search, and identify your account among similar results — and there are always similar results. Every one of those steps loses a share of people, most of them at the second.

A link opens the account directly. The difference is not information but the number of steps, and that is what decides who arrives and who gives up.

Which accounts deserve a place

The working rule: the account you post to regularly and that serves your work.

Photo by dole777 on Unsplash

Ask three questions of each before adding it:

Have you posted in the last two months? If not, leave it out until you return to it.

Does it serve whoever opens my card? A personal account of family photographs has no place on a business card.

Does it add something the page does not say? An account that republishes your page verbatim gives nobody a reason to tap.

And on quantity: three active accounts are stronger than eight where half are dormant. Visitors do not count your accounts, but they notice immediately when they open one and find the last post is a year old.

What if you have no active accounts?

A question from anyone without a broad digital presence: what do I do if I maintain no accounts at all?

The reassuring answer is that this is not a gap requiring cover. A card carrying a WhatsApp number that gets answered, a map location and a clear service list does its whole job with no social account whatsoever.

Many successful businesses in Saudi Arabia — workshops, contractors, service offices, tradespeople — have no regular social presence, and their work comes from direct recommendation. They do not need accounts; they need a page that makes recommending them easier: a link a satisfied customer sends a friend, containing everything that friend needs.

The mistake some make is creating accounts "because everyone has accounts", then abandoning them within two months, converting a neutral absence into a damaging presence.

Specialist platforms by field

General platforms are not the only option. Some fields have specialist ones far more useful than any general account.

A designer may benefit more from a portfolio platform than a social one. A developer from a public code repository. A real estate office from property-specific platforms. A restaurant from review and booking platforms more than an image-led account.

The criterion: where do your customers actually look? — not where the most users are. A platform with a thousand people who are all your audience beats one with millions who have no interest in your field.

That question is worth a minute's thought before filling the fields, because it saves you building a presence somewhere nobody is looking for you.

Order: most important first

Icon order is not decoration. The first two receive most of the taps, and the rest are largely ignored.

Order them by what you want to happen:

Someone wanting direct conversations puts WhatsApp first.

Someone building a professional presence puts LinkedIn first.

Someone whose work is visual — design, photography, beauty, fashion, food — puts the image-led account first, because the work itself does the persuading.

Someone selling a product puts the store or catalogue first.

The common error is ordering by what people are used to seeing rather than by what serves your business. There is no requirement for everyone to lead with the same platform.

WhatsApp: a special case in the Saudi market

Worth pausing on, because its role here differs from most markets.

In Saudi Arabia WhatsApp is not a social account but a primary channel of commerce. Most customer conversations happen there, and customers prefer it to phone calls and email.

Which usually means the WhatsApp button on a business card deserves a prominent position rather than a place among the small icons at the bottom.

An important technical point: write the number in international format starting +966. A locally formatted number fails for anyone opening your card from outside the Kingdom, and it is a common fault its owner never discovers because they only ever test it from inside.

Practical advice: if you have a separate work number, use it. A personal number on a business card means work messages at times you did not choose.

Why a dormant account hurts

This deserves detail because it gets overlooked.

A visitor who opens your account and finds the last post is a year old concludes one of two things: either the business has stopped, or attention to detail is weak. Both harm you, and the second transfers to what they expect of your service.

The fair comparison: a card with three active accounts reads as stronger than one with eight where half are inactive — even though the second looks more "complete" in the dashboard.

The rule: delete what you do not maintain. Deleting here is not a deficiency; it is tidying.

Accounts on team cards

In companies a recurring question arises: should employees show personal accounts or company ones?

Photo by Julian on Unsplash

The distribution that works: company accounts on the company page, and an employee's professional accounts on their card.

The exception is anyone whose personal presence is part of their work — a salesperson who built a professional network, or a consultant known by name. They benefit from their professional accounts appearing on their cards.

What never belongs: personal, non-professional accounts. A card is a work tool, and visitors are looking for professional context, not your life outside work.

Standardising team cards is covered in unified cards for sales teams.

Store and website

If you have an online store or a website, it is usually more important than any social account and deserves a prominent position rather than a small icon at the bottom.

The reason is that the store is where purchasing actually happens, while social accounts are routes to it.

And note that the link should lead to the relevant page rather than always the homepage. If you are promoting a product, the link goes to that product. Every extra step between a visitor and what they came for loses a share of them.

Common mistakes

A wrong or dead link. A closed account, a changed username, or a typo. The fix: press every link yourself once a quarter.

Adding every account because it exists. Existence is not a sufficient reason.

Arbitrary ordering that does not reflect your priorities.

A locally formatted WhatsApp number, explained above.

A link that opens an app the visitor does not have installed, landing them on a sign-up page instead of your content. Test your links on a device without the app.

Knowing which account earns its place

Numbers help directly here: look at which links are actually pressed.

A link untouched in two months serves nobody and competes with the used ones for limited attention. Delete it or move it down.

A link taking most of the taps deserves greater prominence, and possibly promotion from a small icon to a clear button.

Reading these figures is covered in measuring your digital card.

A six-monthly review

Set a reminder twice a year for a short review: press every link, delete whatever stopped, and reorder according to what has changed in your work.

The review takes five minutes and prevents the most common situation: a card carrying links to accounts its owner has not opened in a year, and a visitor drawing exactly the conclusion you did not want.

The rest of the card's elements are covered in a tour of the AurCard dashboard.

With AurCard you can add, reorder and remove accounts at any time, and see which ones are actually being tapped from the dashboard.