How to Wade Your Way through the Social Media Minefield
Latest stats just out on worldwide usage of social media gave some really interesting, and quite frankly scary figures. Have a read of the blog, but in the meantime here?s a snapshot of some of the sites we use for our clients on a regular basis, and how you can use them as a marketing tool for your business.
Site Worldwide Users
Facebook 1.11 billion
LinkedIn 2.25 million
YouTube 1 billion
Twitter 500 million
(Source: Digital Marketing Ramblings, 6 May 2013)
With so many updates and changes happening with each site, it’s easy to suddenly have an out-of-date LinkedIn profile or Facebook page. To avoid spending hours each day figuring out what these changes are and where you should make the changes, have a look at these few, simple suggestions which take into account the most recent changes (as I write today, Friday 10th May that is!)
LinkedIn Company Page
LinkedIn’s company pages have a new layout. Following testing, the new design has been widely rolled out and the features have become far easier to use. So, you should create and use a company page for your business. You should have both a company and personal page. Your personal profile is just that, it’s about you, including your current and previous business experience. Your Company Page is almost a micro-website, which focuses purely on your company and its products / services.
Latest updates mean that you can include many more images than you could previously, so where you list all your products and / or services, include a really nice image alongside it. (Ensure any images you use are owned by your company or are your own, copyright infringements are being stamped on heavily at the moment).
Use your company page to send out updates with blogs, newsletters, latest news – then, share that update with your group of contacts. This way you will start to build up your list of Company Page followers. LinkedIn is the place to showcase the complete professional credentials of your business to a potential customer and should always be up to date.
Facebook for Business
Facebook is about sharing and involvement – so use it to post links to presentations, photos of new products, invitations to events and to ask customers questions useful for research.
Again, using images is the key thing to create engagement with your audience, and build your audience through ‘likes’. Once someone clicks a like from your page, all your updates will automatically be posted to that user. In order for people to ‘like’ an update, it must appeal to them on a personal level. An inspirational quote or image is more likely to appeal to them rather than a photo of one your products. Think from a very personal perspective when posting images onto your Facebook page.
Due to recent changes and the increase in businesses using Facebook, it is acceptable for companies to use it more than it ever has. Just be mindful that you’re posting the right information and images, it should be very different to your LinkedIn and Twitter updates.
Twitter for Business
Twitter is the place to give bites of the latest company news, personal insights from you, the business leader, and responses to customer queries.
Firstly, the Twitter icon has been updated – if you use the icon as a link to your Twitter account on your website, you need to update the icon.
TweetDeck is being sold, and has being closed in its current form by business regulators – Tweet Deck Ltd was officially struck off the register by Companies House on Tuesday 7th May. Tweet Deck is a really useful tool to monitor interaction between you and your audience, and also to monitor the trends relative to your industry. Tweet Deck the product continues to thrive as part of Twitter, so you should still use it to monitor interaction with your followers and to respond to them.
These are just a few of the latest changes to these sites, most of which makes it easier to use them to promote your business.
Overall, it’s smart to weave your story regularly onto multiple platforms, including social media, but not too many. The ones I’ve mentioned here are plenty to give your company widespread targeted coverage.
