How to Optimize Social Media to Benefit Your Small Business
In the modern world, when you begin a small business, it’s not as simple as taking out an advertisement in the newspaper or putting a “now open for business,” sign on your door – it is important to alert the social media world. Sometimes, it can be daunting to think about what that entails. There are new forms of social media being developed on a daily basis, but for now, there are certain sites that are a necessity and how you use those sites can greatly benefit your company.
Facebook has become a social media giant and an essential piece to the social media puzzle. Originally, Facebook was meant just for college students but it has expanded and is now a necessity for doing business. Having a business appropriate personal Facebook is a good idea to stay in touch with clients. The most helpful aspect of Facebook, however, is the fan page option. Through this option, you are able to set up a page for your company.
Once you have set up a fan page, Facebook makes it easy to get fans by inviting people from your personal Facebook page to “like” your fan page. Once you post to the page, your Facebook fans are able to see your updates on their news feed. Facebook also has a helpful tool of viewing your reach. Once you have more than 30 likes on Facebook, you are able to view your reach, meaning you can see the number of people that viewed your posts.
You may be wondering what exactly you should post on your Facebook fan page. Since Facebook is a very immediate form of communication, it is a place to stay current. It is a great place to update fans on the goings-on of your company. You can make announcements about new hires, company charity work, or even company parties. The posts that do best on Facebook are video and picture posts. Since many people go on Facebook for only minutes at a time and tend to only scroll through their newsfeed, picture and video posts are most eye-catching. It is okay to post funny viral videos or memes every once in a while but keep in mind; your followers most want to see items that pertain directly to your industry.
Twitter is also an important social media source. While it doesn’t work as well
for posting photos and video since it shows up only as a link, Twitter is another place where sharing company news or relevant articles to your industry is appropriate.
Building a Twitter following is essential to the process. The best way to gain followers is to follow others. Look for people within your industry who have a large Twitter following. By following their Twitter fans, you will be able to build your own following. Another way to get people to notice you on Twitter is making use of hash-tags. For instance, if your field is SEO, in your Twitter bio write #SEO and #PPC specialist. When someone searches for SEO or PPC, your Twitter profile will come up. Hash-tags are also important to use in your Twitter posts because the posts will also come up when someone does a search for SEO or PPC.
A big part of Twitter is engaging your followers. Asking questions in your posts is a great way to get your followers engaged. @ Replying to people is also a great way to engage. If you liked someone’s post or their feed in general, let them know by @ replying.
LinkedIn is important because it is specifically for business. It is a professional social network and can certainly be used for networking purposes. For LinkedIn, it isn’t about finding strangers to connect with but rather people you have worked with before. Like Facebook, LinkedIn allows you to create and manage both a company page and a personal page and you should definitely make use of the company page feature. Through suggested business connections, LinkedIn can also be helpful in finding new clients. Reaching out to possible clients through a personal message is the best way to do this.
LinkedIn also has forums on their site. Joining these forums and staying active on them is another great way to promote your business and attract new clients. Find the forum specific to your industry and see what others are saying within the forum. You may even learn some new business tactics!
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Some other social media sites to explore are Pinterest, Tumblr, and Instagram (a mobile app). These forms of social media are not relevant to every company. Pinterest and Tumblr are mainly used to post inspirational pictures and are best used if your company is visually based (like retail, lifestyle, graphics or web design). If your company has products and services that can be visually represented or a physical space that is visually compelling, Pinterest and Tumblr are perfect for posting inspirational and informative photos and images.
Instagram is also an industry-specific form of social media that tends to draw a younger audience. Since it is an app that is made up strictly of photos, it can be used to show the behind the scenes of your company. Share pictures of the employees and special events happening in the office. It can also be used to show images of the workspace if that is interesting too. Tagging your photos with hash-tags is an important element of photo sharing on Instagram.
You can never be involved with too many forms of social media so explore all options in order to promote your company. Be sure to stay informed because new social media technology comes about all the time.
This Guest Blog created by www.viastudio.com.