Beginners guide to social media
Which tools should you use?
Let’s take a look at some popular tools and how you can use them in your business, marketing and sales strategy. With every type of social media tool it’s important to spend time updating your profile before you start contributing. You should think of your profile as introducing yourself to people, not your business. Always include a suitable photo, name and location before building your networks.
Blogs
Blogs are the ultimate self-publishing social media tool. You can publish text, video, audio, links and images quickly and easily. Think of a blog as your home on the internet. You can invite people that you meet through social media to visit your blog, and in turn you can introduce them to your business if they are interested. Again, it is not a place for hard sell, but it is a platform for demonstrating your expertise, introducing your business and building a community through adding valuable content only you can provide. Network by finding related blogs and comment on what others have posted.
Twitter
By now it’s safe to say you’ve heard of Twitter. If you haven’t, you will soon. Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read each other’s updates. Updates are limited to posts of 140 characters and can contain text and links. Use Twitter to build a network of relevant people, give your network a glimpse into your business behind the scenes, offer exclusive promotions and illustrate your passion and knowledge as a business owner. Keep in mind that to be successful in this space you need to add value to the people in your network, Offer them tips, interesting links and inspiring thought.
Facebook
As a business, there are a couple of ways that you can use Facebook. You can create a Page for your business and become friends with people to increase your network, post status updates as a glimpse “behind the scenes” of your business, add links to your website, links to relevant videos and more.
You can also become an administrator of your Page. People can join your page, become a fan of your page and you can send emails to the members of your group.
LinkedIn
Unlike the other social network platforms, LinkedIn is a social networking platform dedicated to business.
Use it to exchange information, ideas and opportunities with those in complimentary industries. Stay informed about your contacts and industry, find the people and knowledge you need to achieve your goals and control your professional identity online.
You can build your network to find potential clients, service providers and to promote your business, knowledge and yourself as an expert in your field.
YouTube
YouTube is a social media platform that allows you to upload and share videos that you have created and interact with other users by commenting on their videos. Use it to create short videos relevant to your business. Demonstrate the use of your products or services and reach a new audience. You can also use these videos on your website.
Flickr
This social media platform is ideal for businesses whose offerings are best represented by a picture, or whose product development is interesting enough for images. Flickr is organised by groups, many that are open to contribution. It is a great example of contributing to an existing network and community where you can add your work.
Again, the value here is by sharing and commenting on pictures to build your reputation as an expert and promote your products/services to a new audience.
Managing Your Online Reputation
A consequence of interactivity, self publishing and ease of content sharing is that people are having a conversation and expressing opinions about your products and services, even your business name right now. If you aren’t aware of what’s being said about you or your business then your ability to minimise negative feedback and maximise positive feedback is diminished.
Start with tracking who is linking to your website by looking through your website visitor analytics. If you haven’t got any analytics installed to track visitors to your website this should be your first point of action. Google Analytics is a free statistics package that can be installed into your website by your web developer and will give you vital information about your website visitors.
The next step is to set up a Google Alert for your personal name and your business name. This will track blogs, articles and mentions of your names. Again, this service is free. Google will send you an email on a schedule selected by you (as it happens, daily, or weekly).
Participating in social media is time-consuming yet incredibly rewarding. Do your research, spend time getting to know the platforms and commit to learning one to start with. Don’t over extend yourself and—most importantly—stick with it. The results may not be immediate but they will benefit your business in ways that you can’t imagine until you try it.
—Clare Lancaster is founder of internet consultancy Dot Marketing and has published a series of practical e-guides to website marketing for small business owners. Visit www.clarelancaster.com.au.
Etiquette for Success
The essence of social media is based on the notion of community and, as with any social framework; the issue of etiquette is an important one.
Participating in social media is like going to a party; it is a two-way conversation and it’s important to be yourself.
Take your time to get a feel for the different tools and the community that utilise them.
Limit self-promotion. Present yourself as a person, not as your brand. Engage with the community, don’t sell. Add value to the people who you want to connect with, don’t just promote your business/products/services.
When you’re starting out, take time to see how other businesses are using it and think about your strategy and goals but be flexible. The more you use it the more ways you’ll find to incorporate it into your business.
You can follow Dynamic Business (@dynamicbusiness) for daily small business news, updates and tips, and our editor Jen Bishop (@jenbishopsydney) on Twitter.
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Seeking to promote your business? Create your free Australian business listing with Dynamic Search business directory – Sister site of Dynamic Business.
If using LinkedIn, here are some tips/tutorials I have made. These are free interactive simulations and include customizing your URL and using LinkedIn as a customer relationship management (CRM) tool. Using it as a CRM can be very helpful to any using it for professional networking, businesses or job seekers.
http://www.minutebio.com/LI/PowerTips.htm
Thanks,
Jeff
Good article Clare,
I think there are a couple of areas that you’ve overlooked, specifically around the importance of listening, the time investment required, and the need for the business to consider the cultural implications of engaging in web 2.0/social media. Whilst many social media tools are free, the organisation needs to realise that once you’re on board, you’ve got to invest time – and time for many organisations = money; which kills the whole free and easy argument.
Just quickly on the cultural front. This is hard for most companies as to be really good at engaging with the community an organisation needs to have a mindset that permits unencumbered contribution. Most organisations stumble/fail at this point – the idea that you’d give knowledge or information without a quid pro quo is foreign to the extreme. This is a far deeper issue that many in the marketing/web 2.0/PR space are yet to grasp.
Organisations need to also consider how they set boundaries around the use of the tools, both within their business and in the wider community. I know many so called social media experts decry the idea of setting boundaries but this mindset is dangerous and in many respects negligent if you’re a Director of an Australian business. The ideal of simply letting the community do as they please just doesn’t cut it – and it’s time the marketing and PR types owned up to this fact and stepped back from their free-love ideal. Interestingly some of the key thought leaders in the US (such as David Meerman Scott) are starting to understand this and commenting to this effect.
Clearly transparency is important but the organisation needs to give thought to how they deal with extreme situations such as employee misuse or an anonymous person spreading misleading information. Where an organisation has a clearly stated policy regarding questionable content, the community (will generally) respect this. Where most companies are caught out is where no policy is in place, which then gives the community the impression that they are either trying to hide something or are making things up on the fly – never a good look.
Sorry if I’ve been too critical as I liked the piece you wrote. I think you clearly articulated the need for organisations to just get in and start doing it. We’ve done some interesting work around this idea of the collision of the four core communities and how this drives enterprise performance. I’ll save that for another day
Cheers Mark
Hi Clare,
I need to qualify my earlier post as I overlooked the fact you dealt with the time issue on page 2 of your post. Your comments are spot on and very much in line with my thinking.
It’s easy for someone new to the social media world to think that they can jump in and results just magically happen.
cheers Mark
Great post, thanks for sharing and I would like to know more about the social media optimization and waiting for your next post.
Cheer – Alex
Great article Clare! Yes, seems we’ve reached a real tipping point with web2.0 everyone is talking about it. Old, young, rich and poor. Sure the internet has been around for quite some time, but I really believe 2009 has been the year everyone is online