Using Social Media to Help Your Business
In the past, you would pay for an ad in the Yellow Pages. Maybe if you had a lot of money for marketing, you would create a commercial too. These days, neither of those options will work when trying to promote your business. Your business needs to get on board with social media, even if you don’t use it personally. However, there is so much noise on social media, it is hard to know where to focus your efforts and what to post that will help translate into customers or clients for your business.
Find Your Focus
There are so many social media platforms it can be easy to get distracted and try to build your audience on all of them at the same time. The truth is you don’t need to have a presence on all of the platforms. Most people use different platforms for different areas of their life. Ask yourself where your audience will be when they are trying to find you.
Facebook is great for business to consumer interactions. If you are looking to reach the majority of individual users, Facebook is a great place to focus your efforts. Most of the people who spend time on Facebook are a little bit older, 35+ and not necessarily millennial or younger generations. They visit Facebook to get news and other updates or catch up with what friends are doing. Facebook is also a great place for like-minded individuals. Facebook groups are quickly becoming the most popular place for people to go when visiting Facebook.
LinkedIn is great for business to business interactions. When people are looking for jobs or to hire employees, they are visiting LinkedIn. If you are looking for business clients, LinkedIn is where you will get their attention. People usually browse LinkedIn while at work, and while they are in “work mode”. Focused efforts on LinkedIn can set you up as an expert in your field and can help you network with other people in your field.
Instagram and Pinterest are both highly visual. If you have a product for consumers that can look amazing in photographs, you can find some great success on these platforms. Both are highly female audiences, but there are definitely guys on the platforms as well.
Twitter is extremely difficult to break through the noise, because there is so much noise and spam on the platform. It is most beneficial for live events. If you are planning a live event, help get the word out during the event through Twitter.
Quality Over Quantity
Once you have found the network or networks you want to focus your time and attention on, think about each update. Don’t just start posting random things that are funny, or news articles that have nothing to do with your business. Make sure that the things you share are still related to your business. People will follow your account because you offer specific solutions or items. The general population also doesn’t want to be inundated with updates from your business. Facebook doesn’t show each of your updates to all of your followers, so you can post more frequently there, but if you fill up someone’s feed with your updates, so they can’t see what their friends are up to, they will unfollow you fast!
If you truly don’t have the time to update your social account on a regular basis, make sure you hire it out to someone who can. Consistency is key for any platform.
