Social-media marketing sounds intimidating — especially to those of us over 35 — but the value that it can bring to marketing your company and services should not be dismissed lightly. If you are feeling a bit out of the loop, we are ready to help. Sir Speedy Centennial has been developing its own social-media presence and we’re ready to share what we’re learning.
What You Need to Know About Social Media
Do you Tweet? Are you a Facebook fan? Jumping into the social media arena can seem daunting; more so if you’re uncertain about to which sites you should pay attention and what benefits are offered. Social media provides an electronic platform for networking and the ability to grow your business. Social Media, according to Wikipedia.org, is defined as “media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques.” Basically, another way of connecting with people by using the Internet. Social media, sometimes referred to as SoMe, can be used to meet new people, engage in your interests, seek out old friends and build relationships.
The Big Four
There are thousands of social media sites on the Internet today. We have narrowed the scope down to the top four that we think are deserving of your attention—Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. Twitter — Micro Blogging: 45 million users
Twitter provides a forum where brands can interact with their consumers on a personal level, whether to introduce people to a product, communicate a special offer or to provide customer service. In 140 characters or less, you can use twitter to engage with your current customers, reach out to prospects by searching for keywords and to promote how your business can help others with theirs. Twitter allows you to engage with customers and prospects on a personal level, generate brand awareness, seek and create media opportunities, foster customer loyalty, promote products and services, network with customers, monitor trends & breaking news. It also requires almost constant attention. Twitter updates and searches should be done a few times daily, if not more. There is a fine line between too much tweeting (spam) and not enough (disinterest). You will need to take a look at what other people are doing in your same field and use that as an example. The newest Twitter trends are tweetups and Twestivals. A tweetup is an event where people who twitter come together to meet in person. At a tweetup you meet the people you might only otherwise know virtually. Like finally putting a name to a face, a tweetup is a great opportunity to really connect with the people in your network and share just a little more than 140 characters at a time. Twestival is an international movement where people meet offline for one night, have fun and do some good for an important cause in the process. Twestival Local gives cities an opportunity to select a local cause to support.
Facebook — Social Networking: 300 million users Facebook allows you to find business contacts, build relationships, meet peers, develop your brand, target your niche, foster customer loyalty, promote products and services and new offerings/discounts, announce news, create events and more. Facebook Fan pages are a great way to get your business onto Facebook. Fan pages work similar to personal pages but are more geared to businesses with content sections such as Company Overview, Mission Statement, Website and Products categories. Having a fan page allows you another method of communicating special offers, providing customer service and introducing new strategies such as providing marketing services. Fan pages are not to be used to get personal information out. You can also create Facebook Ads directing people to your fan page. Having a Facebook Fan page doesn’t require as much attention as a micro blogging platform. With a Facebook Fan page, you can update it a few times a week without being deemed uninvolved. Facebook Fan pages can be seen as a continuation of Twitter updates. On Facebook Fan pages, you can divulge more information, post images of the latest projects you’ve completed (similar to a portfolio) and give longer updates.
LinkedIn — Professional Networking: 50 million users LinkedIn is a professional social networking site. People can create profiles based on past work experience, connect with coworkers, participate in forums responding to questions posed by colleagues and use it as a recruiting tool. LinkedIn allows you to make your profile information available for search engines to index. Since LinkedIn profiles receive a fairly high PageRank in Google, this is a good way to influence what people see when they search for your type of business. If a salesperson has a complete profile mentioning any components of marketing services and someone searches for those keywords, their profile could rank high giving a potential customer a direct contact to them. LinkedIn also allows you to gauge the help of an industry, track new business start‐ups, and increase your visibility. Similar to Facebook Fan pages, LinkedIn doesn’t require much updating. But it’s a good idea to check in every day to see the latest topics.
YouTube — Video Hosting Service: 85 million unique users YouTube is a video sharing website where you can upload and share videos. When you create an account on YouTube, you have the ability to customize it. Use brand colors, your logo or a collage of images from your portfolio. Once your site is ready, add videos of your facility, open houses, tradeshows you have attended or networking events. Ask customers if you can interview them. Use YouTube to show that you are active in your community, that you have the latest printing systems, show the sales-collateral system at a glance. Videos should not be very long. Anything longer than five minutes, unless you’ve already told the viewer it’s a training session, should be avoided. If it is longer, break it up into parts. If possible, always have someone in the video. Become familiar with video-editing software.
Getting Started
Before you begin, visit a few of the sites mentioned above and browse the functionality. Do some research. See if your competitors are also listed. Determine how many people are in your business area and what other businesses similar to yours are doing. Sign up for accounts. Get your business name secured as your username. There may be someone else using your same business name. Make sure it includes your business name and location so people know right away where you are located.
In Twitter, you have a 14‐character limit to your username. The shorter the better and try to avoid using too many special characters, such as underscores and dashes. One is enough. People need to remember your username easily so they can send you tweets.
You are ready to begin.
First develop a social-media strategy. This is a very important tool before you jump into social media practices. You need to find the level of social-media engagement that makes sense for your business today. Once this strategy has been created, it must be shared with your entire team so that everyone understands the ultimate goal.
Your strategy should cover questions such as:
- Are your customers likely to be online?
- How will you incorporate this into people’s daily jobs?
- How will you measure results?
- Are you ready to handle negativity?
- How long are you willing to give it a try?
Next, decide on who will be responsible for maintaining your online appearance. How many hours should this person dedicate to updating Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or all four if you so choose? And finally, begin!
Create your pages, fill with content, and then start sharing them with your customers. Add links to your fan page, twitter page, and YouTube page in your newsletters. Entice fans and followers by offering rewards to the 100th fan or 100th follower. Interact with people. It doesn’t have to be all business, especially with Twitter. A good mix of personal and business will make followers feel more connected to you. Host a tweetup at your center. Get involved in your local twestival. Announce your event or participation in events on your Facebook Fan page and LinkedIn, and make sure you take a video camera and film your experience. Have fun with it. The main priority of social media is to be social. Social media is an emerging communication technology and is evolving almost daily. Overtime we will provide additional information about Social Media and how it can benefit your business as well as your clients.
For more information, contact Sir speedy Centennial 303-799-4383.
The following articles provide additional information on utilizing social media in your business:
third party tourist organization that promoted Colorado. The owners of the Runaway Inn had no control over content, SEO, or images. A complete web make-over was done to allow them to continually keep their site updated on their own. We have added features such as local weather, connection to their business Facebook page and video.