So, social media – what’s that all about? It does seem to be the latest marketing bandwagon to throw yourself upon but can it be good for business or just a way for staff to fritter their day away?
Like any kind of marketing, social media can be a waste of time if you don’t have objectives and a strategy but what benefits can you hope to achieve if you do spend a little time putting those in place? Well for a start you can interact with your customers and prospects, communicate your key messages, build your brand, conduct promotional campaigns, seek feedback and engage in two-way communication, promote new products and services and show the ‘personality’ of your company.
Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, Linked In etc: All these social media activities really compliment the SEO work that we do to promote our clients’ websites – the more online activity you conduct along with fresh, engaging, up to date web content, the better your page ranking is going to get so why not have a go?
Before you start, have a strategy in mind. This doesn’t need to be a huge company document – just something that will keep you focused on what you want to get out of social media and how it integrates with other marketing activity. The following are just a few tips on what your social media strategy needs to include
- Keep your content interesting and engaging. Telling people what you’re having for lunch is fine every once in a while, it can give your business a friendly feel and show your personality, but it won’t keep your followers engaged. Intersperse your tweets, status updates etc with relevant content – product offers, relevant topics, tips, industry comment etc
- Update regularly but not too often – you need to keep your messages fresh but not bombard people. You’ll soon lose followers if you’re posting hourly updates!
- Plan your content in advance. Some posts will be spontaneous reactions and thoughts but you can use a number of applications to plan your promotions in advance (in line with other on and offline activity) and even post them automatically. Just remember though, if you’re asking for responses make sure you’re available to deal with them when your posts go out
- Be appropriate. Posts are instant and for many social media platforms cannot be taken back once live. Don’t be derogatory, don’t swear, don’t defame, don’t give too much personal information. Just bear in mind that you are speaking on behalf of your company and your brand so just consider how your posts reflect on the business and remember that in theory ANYONE can read them including your competitors and suppliers!
- Integrate your social media activity for maximum benefit. Promote your blog posts via Facebook and Twitter, create discussions on Facebook and promote via your blog and Twitter, direct people from your blogs to your Twitter and Facebook accounts etc
- Don’t go for the hard sell in every post – identify your market and make your content relevant to them even if it’s not directly related to your products. It demonstrates that you understand your audience and maintains their interest
- Keep going! It can take a while to establish your social media activity and see results so don’t lose faith
One of the best things about social media is that you can have a go yourself. You don’t need too much technical ability and after all, nobody knows your products and services like you do! If you find that you just don’t have time yourself professional help is available – just make sure it integrates with your SEO activity and compliments your offline marketing and if you want to know more about that, why not talk to us!!
