Social Media Tips – Our Top 10
We’ve compiled our top 10 social media tips below to help you get more positive exposure for your small business.
- Don’t use social media for the ‘hard sell’
Social media should be all about communicating and building an online business community rather than ramming blatant sales messages down people’s throats. If you use social media to try and ‘hard sell’ you’ll be wasting everyone’s time.
- Choose just 1 or 2 social media sites
With so many social media sites around, it’s best to just focus on 1 or 2 to use regularly, otherwise it can be difficult to keep up with them all and maintain a consistent message and brand for your business.
- Decide how you’re going to measure social media success
Some small business owners are happy to use social media to create brand awareness, while for others, online sales or enquiries may be most important.
It’s wise to think about what you want to get out of social media before you start so that you can choose the right platform and channel your time and effort in the right way.
- Be persistent
There are probably millions of Facebook and Twitter accounts that were set up by businesses and have been left dormant. Social media is not a magic wand and you should give yourself at least 3 months to make an impression.
- Dare to be different
If you’re putting your thoughts on Twitter about industry news then adopting a slightly different angle can help you get noticed by your followers as well as a wider audience.
- It’s nice to share
Following on from tip #1 you should try to involve yourself in the online community. For example if one of your followers on Twitter writes a great tweet or links to some interesting content, you should share it with your own followers to help spread the word. They are much more likely to then do the same for you in the future.
- Brand your social media accounts
Social media is a natural extension of your business so make sure you brand your Twitter or Facebook profiles professionally as these are still a reflection on your company as a whole.
- Don’t post updates if you’ve got nothing to say
A common complaint of people who use Twitter for business is that many users tweet inanely about non-business issues. While you should definitely put some of your own personality into what you do and even include non-business matters from time to time, nobody is really interested in what you had for lunch.
- Remember – relevance is king
When it comes to Facebook and Twitter it’s easy to lose focus and care more about the number of fans or followers you have rather than trying to build a relevant community.
Remember that social media is not a popularity contest and it’s better to have 50 fans that are interested in you and your business than 500 who couldn’t care less and don’t read your updates.
- Integrate social media with your website
A good way to build up a following that is interested in what you do is to have links to your social media accounts on the homepage of your website. You should also include your social media links in your email signatures and forum postings.
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