Correctly used, social media provides the opportunity to interact with your community of customers and prospects and build relationships. It also offers a great way for your followers to alert you to problems so that they can be solved. Using social media, customers can be motivated to become your promoters.
Social media can help you share news from your company about special offers, activities in the store, and employee news that will build a relationship with you and keep your brand in front of the public. With Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter you can build brand visibility and increase the perception that you care about your customers and supporters.
Reviewing the Major Social Media Channels
While some businesses may not be a good candidate for social media of any kind, many businesses will benefit from a judicious inclusion of social media in their communications mix.
There are many different channels but the most powerful ones right now are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest, and Blogs. As you choose which to use, consider whether they are visited by your customers and whether you have the time to post regularly. With social media, finding the right audience and having fresh material is critical.
Facebook – Facebook is a great choice for retail stores that carry products like crafts, housewares, or activity equipment. It is also very useful for community organizations and social service agencies. It allows users to establish a sense of community and offer useful information to one another. On Facebook you can post links to web pages, videos, or blog posts in order to build traffic online.
Facebook is most powerful when it is used to communicate with customers rather than other businesses. Google does not include Facebook in search rankings, but using a Facebook page can significantly increase traffic to your website if your customers are on Facebook. Engaging images, human interest stories, videos, and links to more information are very popular on Facebook.
LinkedIn – LinkedIn is widely used to establish professional relationships but it is easily underutilized for business promotion. Most businesses that serve other businesses should have a LinkedIn page with additional personal pages for company employees with links to the company page. This will increase company visibility because all of the employee’s personal connections become company connections.
For B-2-B companies, LinkedIn is a great social media vehicle because it allows the company to post micro-blogs of 140 characters including links that can also be shared on Twitter. Every time there is a new post it helps to build the brand image. The company should plan to have posts several times per week if not daily.
Twitter – Twitter is most useful for posting fresh information including new offers, observations, and breaking industry or business news. For businesses to get the greatest impact from Twitter they should know that their customer base frequents that channel. The desired audience appreciates the information the company provides and the links that that are included will drive traffic to the website and build the perception that the company is an authority in their field. To use Twitter well, you must post every day or two, and many Twitter users send the same tweet several times a day to maximize visibility.
YouTube – Video is very popular online and, depending upon the survey, YouTube is either the second or third most used of all the search engines. In a study reported by eMarketer, about 60% of US internet users visited YouTube at least once a week.
With a good video description and the right keywords, interesting content, and internal links, videos can increase the visibility of the business, build credibility, and increase traffic to the website. Consider hosting your video on your website and then also having YouTube and Vimeo channels to maximize your control.
Blog – Blogs are not for everyone. A web log is an online article that provides beneficial information to readers. Like videos, blogs require a significant level of commitment from the organization because they are rarely quick to produce and they need to be published on a regular schedule in order to build an audience. If you cannot frequently produce new content that will interest your target consumers, a blog is not a good choice for you. Have a clear objective for your blog, establish an editorial calendar and use the blog to increase your search rankings and the credibility of your business.
Pinterest – Pinterest is a relatively new channel and has become very popular for building communities with some businesses. Food, fashion, and crafts, for instance, have been able to find audiences on Pinterest because their business-related photographs interest followers.
Frequent attractive images help attract interest and will drive traffic from Pinterest to other social sites and the company website. If the business is less conducive to engaging images, Pinterest is a poor social media choice.
Google+ – Google+ is the largest search engine’s social media offering and is intended to compete with Facebook and LinkedIn. It can add value when companies cater to other business people. It is also great for special interest groups like gardeners, bicyclists or model airplane pilots. The ability to contribute to the community is a great advantage for Google+ and posting on Google+ impacts web search rankings.
Review the Advantages and Costs before you Decide Whether to be on Social Media
Your business may not be a good candidate for social media of any kind. If you have a local service business like a dry cleaners or car repair shop, being on a social channel may not be worth your time because customers have little incentive to interact with you online. Face to face exchanges are more valuable. This is the reason that Forbes predicted that local businesses would not find social media to be very useful in the coming year.
If you do not have the time or enjoy creating the content, do not bother to establish a presence on any of the social medial channels, either. Allowing your site to languish is worse than having no position at all. One of the greatest opportunities of building a community online is your enhanced ability to listen and interact with customers. If you have a presence online and do not respond to inquiries or complaints, you will increase their dissatisfaction rather than building the perception that you care about providing good service.
Ultimately, the goal of all these social media tools is to increase revenues by adding to the ways customers can connect with you. If you disappoint them, your social media presence could hurt more than it helps. When you limit your participation to those channels that you can manage and that are popular with your customers, social media can contribute significantly to your brand image, customer relationships, and sales.
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