How social should you be?
Let’s face it. Social media is everywhere. Chances are you have a facebook account, a twitter profile, maybe you have linkedin or a blog. These days it’s almost impossible to stay fully informed without at least one of these social media platforms. With the sudden increase of people using social media over the last few years, it is no longer simply a networking tool or used just to stay in touch with friends. Now, social media is integrated into many marketing strategies forming part of an entire communications plan for companies. But, how do you know which platform is the best for your company, how do you measure it, and does social media work for every business?
First it’s important to take stock of what it is you want to achieve for your business. Are you looking at creating brand awareness and enticing interaction with people who are interested in your brand? Do you want to increase sales? Drive traffic to your website?
It’s also wise to look at who you are targeting – is your audience the type who would use twitter or are they more inclined to log on to facebook. Will they read your blogs?
You should also ask yourself if you have the time to allow for social media in your day/week/month. You need to be realistic – can you do it yourself or are you better off passing it to a PR or Social Media Marketing Agency who can do it for you and provide you with a ROI report?
To give you an idea see below for benefits of the top 3 social media websites that can help you market business.
Facebook: A great site to use for customer engagement, proving an avenue for feedback, interaction and brand awareness for your products and services.
Twitter: A really good way to increase traffic to your company’s webpage. Also a great to keep your company engaging with followers, notifying them of promotions and offers. The more followers you have, the more people click on your links.
Blogging: Generally easy to use depending on the program you choose. A blog is a fantastic way to increase web traffic as well as position yourself as an expert in your field. Perfect for (SEO) Search Engine Optimisation allowing for keywords. Blogging can be time consuming and needs to be done fairly regularly to have an impact.
While Social Media can be fairly simple to get start, it’s not always executed correctly. Have a think about whether you’re equipped to handle this part of your business? Do you have a strategy, do you know what you’re trying to achieve? Do you know how you’re going to track your results?
If used correctly, Social Media Marketing is a great tool and can bring great rewards when successfully implemented in a campaign. It’s also cheap to set up and is relatively easy to use.
Happy Tweeting!