Social media is a wonderful tool for promoting your business: It’s free, it’s already part of a network and it’s designed so things are found quickly and easily.
There are a number of social media channels. They’ve been around for different amounts of time, have different uses and each has a particular audience. It can be quick and easy to build a good-sized following on the main social media platforms but the audience is often diverse, which can be a good or a bad thing. You’re probably familiar with the main social media platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+ and Facebook and there are many, many more.
There’s also blogging. Blogs tends to take longer to build a sizeable following but your audience is more closely aligned with what you do. Blogging platforms you’ve heard of would probably include WordPress, Tumblr and Blogger, amongst others.
Many businesses will automatically create one or more social media accounts and will often publicise that they’re on a number of the different platforms. Like so many other powerful tools, social media should be used correctly or it can do more harm than good.
So as well as all of the good things about social media, you should also be cautious of the possible pitfalls when using social media as a way of promoting your business. There are loads of things to consider but here are four to be going on with:
1. Use it!
A nearly empty Facebook presence, tweets that stopped a year ago, a google + or google business profile with nothing on it. Worst still information that’s out of date or just inaccurate now.
It reflects badly on your business when a follower sees little or no response or activity from you. If you’re not posting new content any more will they assume you’re no longer in business?
2. Link them all together
The clue’s in the name: “Your social network”. Whichever tools you use, media or blog, they should link up with each other and with your website, email – your whole on-line presence – if they’re to maximise the benefit to your business.
3. Negative interactions
One of the great strengths of social networking and social media is that it allows you to interact with a large audience easily and for them to interact with you just as easily. That easy interaction and large audience can work against you though: It’s there 24 hours a day, for all to see.
What if a customer is genuinely unhappy or if a competitor decides to post a fake negative comment about you? Even worse, what if you’re unfortunate enough to be targeted by a social media troll? If that’s the first thing a new customer sees about you, it could be disastrous.
No matter what, you have to be able to respond quickly and effectively. It doesn’t matter if you’re busy with other work, what time of day or night it is, whether you’re at work or on holiday.
4. Remember, it’s not your social medium
Social media companies change the rules for their users. Its a simple fact. That may not affect you or it might have a detrimental effect on your business.
A few years ago you may have heard of Bebo, Myspace or even Piczo as big names in social media. There used to be others too. Social media channels can decline in popularity and close down.
They also get bought out and the new owners may impose different rules for their use.
Think carefully about how much of your time and effort you invest in any single channel to raise your profile on social media.
Weaving your social media web
green h helps you to integrate your social network with the rest of your on-line presence so it acts as an effective way to promote your business and engage with new and existing customers.
We connect your social media channels with your website, e-mail and on-line apps so they all work, together, for the good of your business.
We also understand how to deal with the negative side of social media and can advise or help you‘re unlucky enough to happen to you.
Your website is the hub of your on-line presence and social media is a marketing tool. In other words, your social network is part of a ‘web’ that you weave to bring visitors to you.
Use social media to expand your audience and engage with your network. Then you can use your on-line presence to its maximum effect: To fulfil the business objectives you have set and grow your business the way you want to.
Click here to contact us about social media marketing and engagement.