Nowadays everyone is told they should be on Facebook, sending Tweets and interacting via Linkedin in order to grow your business. Social media interact is another strand to your overall advertising/marketing strategy and we thought it would be useful to list some useful tips to make the most out of social media use.
Talk to everyone
Believe it or not the purpose of social media is in the title….being social. Interact with people. Don’t just try and push your product as that will quickly put people off but comment on other peoples content and pages too. Why not try and leave at least 1 comment a day on someone elses facebook page? This will expose your business to a whole host of different conversations and audiences. Also make sure you reply to any comments left on your page in a swift and friendly way.
Follow strangers
If there is a potential customer/client/supplier that you would like to work with find them on social media and follow them and interact with them. You will them pop up on their notifications and if they like what they see, they will likely invite you into their social media circles that may also open up other opportunities. This process also applies to any new contacts that you gain. Anyone you meet at a networking event, an online community forum or a new customer or client should be added to your social media contacts as soon as you can.
Shake it Up
If your social media interaction isn’t giving the desired results don’t be afraid to go back and look at what you are doing and see where you are going wrong. Perhaps look at a business that has a large following or a lot of interaction via social media and see what they are doing that you aren’t. Keep adapting and innovating your social media efforts as they will eventually pay off.
Be emotional
Don’t just promote your products as that will bore people. Let people see your business in a different angle; what is your business ethos and company culture. Why not share an office photo on a night out (or again maybe not) or your office sports team results. Anything that shows that you are at the end of the day human. Creating that emotional connection is important as in most businesses people deal with people and also tend do business with people that they like.
Don’t expect results right away
Don’t expect that after a week of tweeting you will have doubled your level of sales. Social media, as with most forms of advertising and promotion, is a slow process. Social media isn’t survival of the fittest but survival of the fastest. Did you know that the average tweet only stays in the spotlight for an average of 6-7 minutes? Or that a good facebook post only lasts a couple of hours. Keep your posts and interactions frequent. Time your postings at the best time that potential clients and customers will likely read them. Make life easy by downloading handy apps, using social media dashboards such as hootsuite and spread the workload around the office. You don’t need to write a book each time, just as long as you are staying near the top of the screen of interested parties.