Starting to think about your social media marketing?
1) Are you committed to it?
You regularly hear people complain that they see no return for being on Twitter, Facebook or any other social media outlets, they have joined but its not brought people to them and its just a waste of time. So why do it - as a new business you will more than likely not have a bottomless pit for your marketing budget but you need to create an impact and reach to as many potential clients and customers as possible. Broadening your network is a key development need in many businesses and why there are so many networking organisations around. Social Media allows you a vehicle to access all of this and to actually do so is FREE. If you start looking you will be amazed at who is on social media channels. But to find the benefits of this network you will have to invest time into it.
A great example of this is www.cutcloycottage.com and@CutcloyCottage on twitter, they are a holiday cottage based on the Isle of Whithorn in Scotland, and they use their twitter account to talk about the region, what you can see, link to activities you may want to do, such as cycling breaks, cafes, restaurants, and create a sense of community and place, festivals, artists, historical links. It helps to answer the question of why go there and what is there to do when I get there?
2) What do you get from it? it gives you an opportunity to be a part of the conversations going on around your area of knowledge. It may give you a chance to put forward your ideas and products. What it is not is a place to shout about what you do and never listen to what anyone else is saying. Would you actively seek out someone who said the same thing to you day after day and never listened to you?
The JCI Sheffield is a great example of an organisation that uses social media to reach out to its wide and disparate membership, they use twitter (@JCISheffield) Linked In groups (JCI Sheffield) as well as Facebook to share updates on events, talk about achievements and encourage membership and participation.
3) Where to turn?
There are so many different social media platforms and as a small business you can not keep them all updated, full of different and relevant content, manage all the different conversations and listen to the key players. What I would suggest you do is look to where your key audience is: ie LinkedIn is a professional networking organisation, it's a place for professionals to talk business, so if you are selling business to business this could be a good place for you to start.
Facebook is designed around conversations between friends (however distant) and twitter is conversations around interested parties. For businesses who sell direct to consumers then these channels may well be the best ones for you. Facebook has a slightly younger (52% 18 -34) demographic to Twitter (57% 26 -44). Information from www.digitalbuzzblog.com
4) What to say? You need to think about what you want people to do? essentially know more about your brand and how to access your business. To become the word of mouth champions for what you do. This will only come through communicating with people and not talking at people.
A great example of this is www.janefardon.com on twitter @janefardon they are a cosmetics company who have created a British made range of make-up designed to suit your colouring, they have listened to what their consumers wanted and created a range to suit that need. Their tweets are directed to the people who use or would use their cosmetics and reflect the company ethos of caring for their customers.
5) Don't be afraid to ask for professional help,
Don't feel as though you ought to be able to do it all, when you don't have to. Look at what you are doing, is your output as good as it should be? look at your competition, how do you compare? What type of content are you putting out there? Is your network growing? There are plenty of places you can turn to when looking for help. There are companies like mine which offer twitter lessons, can create social media campaigns and help to run your social media campaigns. There are apps you can use, such as tweetdeck and hoot suite to help you manage your social media. One word of warning on this one, don't be tempted to fully automate all of your social media output, you'll never reap the full benefits of this medium if you don't listen and communicate with people!
6) Keep going
The final bit of advice is to keep going with social media, many companies start and then it gets forgotten about, and its always then bottom of the 'to-do' list. Here are some places to start looking to take things further:
business2community.com 7-essentials-of-an-effective-social-media-marketing-strategy
taking the fear out of trying to have the perfect social media campaign travelmarketreport.com
1) Are you committed to it?
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| The Isle of Whithorn |
A great example of this is www.cutcloycottage.com and
2) What do you get from it? it gives you an opportunity to be a part of the conversations going on around your area of knowledge. It may give you a chance to put forward your ideas and products. What it is not is a place to shout about what you do and never listen to what anyone else is saying. Would you actively seek out someone who said the same thing to you day after day and never listened to you?
The JCI Sheffield is a great example of an organisation that uses social media to reach out to its wide and disparate membership, they use twitter (@JCISheffield) Linked In groups (JCI Sheffield) as well as Facebook to share updates on events, talk about achievements and encourage membership and participation.
3) Where to turn?
There are so many different social media platforms and as a small business you can not keep them all updated, full of different and relevant content, manage all the different conversations and listen to the key players. What I would suggest you do is look to where your key audience is: ie LinkedIn is a professional networking organisation, it's a place for professionals to talk business, so if you are selling business to business this could be a good place for you to start.
Facebook is designed around conversations between friends (however distant) and twitter is conversations around interested parties. For businesses who sell direct to consumers then these channels may well be the best ones for you. Facebook has a slightly younger (52% 18 -34) demographic to Twitter (57% 26 -44). Information from www.digitalbuzzblog.com
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| which way to choose? |
4) What to say? You need to think about what you want people to do? essentially know more about your brand and how to access your business. To become the word of mouth champions for what you do. This will only come through communicating with people and not talking at people.
A great example of this is www.janefardon.com on twitter @janefardon they are a cosmetics company who have created a British made range of make-up designed to suit your colouring, they have listened to what their consumers wanted and created a range to suit that need. Their tweets are directed to the people who use or would use their cosmetics and reflect the company ethos of caring for their customers.
5) Don't be afraid to ask for professional help,
Don't feel as though you ought to be able to do it all, when you don't have to. Look at what you are doing, is your output as good as it should be? look at your competition, how do you compare? What type of content are you putting out there? Is your network growing? There are plenty of places you can turn to when looking for help. There are companies like mine which offer twitter lessons, can create social media campaigns and help to run your social media campaigns. There are apps you can use, such as tweetdeck and hoot suite to help you manage your social media. One word of warning on this one, don't be tempted to fully automate all of your social media output, you'll never reap the full benefits of this medium if you don't listen and communicate with people!
6) Keep going
The final bit of advice is to keep going with social media, many companies start and then it gets forgotten about, and its always then bottom of the 'to-do' list. Here are some places to start looking to take things further:
business2community.com 7-essentials-of-an-effective-social-media-marketing-strategy
taking the fear out of trying to have the perfect social media campaign travelmarketreport.com