There’s no point being anti-social now…social media is the trendy part of business but luckily, you can dominate the competition with it! Because of their enormous popularity with the general public, it makes no sense to ignore Facebook, Twitter and the like nowadays. The marketing strength behind social media is such that you’re likely to see big companies promoting their Facebook page instead of (or as much as) their official website.
It’s time to go social.
Let’s just pause a moment, for a word of warning, before we dig into the big players in social media: It won’t do you any good creating social media accounts and then leaving them alone. When someone visits your social media page, they’ll expect to see updates, recent news, as well as someone regularly replying to questions and messages. Even though it’s not much, there’s time involved in managing social media, but nothing you can’t outsource to someone else to do. 🙂
Facebook
Facebook is sorta like a blog with great media sharing capabilities; it allows you to post messages of any length, with an emphasis on including photos and videos. But, don’t try and use Facebook just to pitch sales messages. When users like what they see, they can give it a “thumbs up” and even share the information with their circle of friends. But if they don’t like what they’re seeing (eg. if you just pitch sales lingo at them all the time), they’ll probably stop following your page altogether. Remember, users surf Facebook looking for fun and exciting things to look at and share, so mix up your business posts with funny images or interesting facts and you’ll be well on your way to creating a great fan base.
Twitter
Not like Facebook, Twitter is a much-shortened version of blogging, whereby it only lets you post messages (aka ‘tweets’) of 140 characters in length. If other users become interested in what you’re saying, they subscribe (aka ‘follow’) to your account. They also have the ability to reply to your Tweets – an easy way to engage with them! The most exciting aspect to Twitter is when someone shares your tweet (aka ‘retweets’) with their followers, then your message gains an even wider audience. There’s no limit to Retweeting so your reach is unlimited! As with Facebook, your Tweets on Twitter should be a mixture of sales messages and other more interesting/personal material.
Do I Really Need To Be Social?
Yes! Because with the right combination of business promotion and entertainment, you’ll naturally generate interest and then people will to visit your website. The more “real” you appear – meaning you’re connecting with followers and perhaps following other people or pages, too – the more likely people will find you (and your business) interesting and interact with you. What’s more, they’ll then ‘share’ or ‘retweet’ your messages or posts…which is like having an army of people advertising your business for you!
Now before you go opening up a bunch of social media accounts, you really need to review your overall strategy. The fact is, unless you’ve put in place a way to capture visitor details, an autoresponder series, optimized your website and created videos, there’s little point in spending time on social media. Yes, Social media can drive more traffic to your website, but make sure you’re prepared for those visitors first. Then you can get social…
You may be familiar with social media for marketing already, and if so – keep it up – you know its value! But if you felt this post was written in another language, then you need to consult an expert in the industry! There’s a lot of helpful information in this video if you want to learn more, or if you prefer to talk to someone about developing a social media strategy, give the team at Melbourne SEO Services a call on 1300 662 979.