As the social web continues to evolve and change, it’s time for business busy with online marketing to take their social media marketing initiatives serious. Social media marketing cannot exist in its own silo or on the side where it doesn’t get any attention. Integrating social media in your business and transforming your business into a social business is where you should put your effort into.
Social media marketing should be part of your overall marketing activities and have strategic objectives with related metrics that you can use to measure the effectiveness of social media within your business. If you still have questions if social media is actually the route to go with your business or you are unsure of how to start your campaign because you don’t know how it will fit into your business, find below a couple of short tips on what social media is all about.
Business social media tips
1. Social media is not only for children: Social media is growing at the speed of light and used by many businesses to communicate with targeted audiences. Apple, Microsoft, and many other fortune 500 companies are using social media to connect with their customers, not their children.
2. Social media is not about you: Social media is all about the community and how you are engaging with them. How can you help them without expecting anything in return from them?
3. Make time to share other peoples content: Right down to the core, social media is about the community. If you read an interesting blog post or article, share it with your own network.
4. Always respond where it’s due: While it’s natural to like it when people are talking about you, it’s very important to use social media to engage with the people asking you questions.
5. Twitter is not a one way broadcasting stream: Don’t use Twitter only to do push marketing. While many self promotional tweets are ok, it shouldn’t be done on a constant basis. Use one self promotional tweet about your business for every ten tweets you post on other related content.
6. Don’t tweet what you are doing the whole time: Don’t update your Twitter stream on what you had for lunch everyday. Even your closest friends don’t want to know what you are eating everyday. Provide relevant and interested information to your followers that they will read.
7. Facebook is not an extended advertisement: Don’t use your Facebook page as another distribution channel. It’s not. Facebook is all about engagement once again and not only for your promotions.
8. Complete your Facebook profile: Maybe it’s in the back of your mind, but updating your Facebook profile and engaging with your fans and friends on a daily basis will keep your Facebook profile healthy.
9. Connect with people on LinkedIn: Don’t use LinkedIn to connect with people only when you are looking for a job. Do you really think people wouldn’t notice if you suddenly start building up all your connections? Instead, use LinkedIn to connected with relevant people every opportunity that you have.
10. Recommend people on LinkedIn: If you want to get recommended by others, return the favor. LinkedIn is not a one way social media channel. Think a bit how you can recommend others.
11. Be active on LinkedIn: While there are more people active on Twitter and Facebook, on LinkedIn it’s very useful to participate in the answers section and discussion groups to build a following.
Blogging
12. Often update your blog: Your blog can tell a story. If you haven’t updated your blog in a while, it does show your willingness to engage on the social web. This is the message I usually get with an outdated blog “Nobody’s home”.
13. Don’t blog just to promote: Don’t just use your blog to generated targeted traffic to your sales. Your blog is a medium that can be used in providing sales related information and drive traffic, especially if you have call to actions on your posts.
14. Engage with your readers: While many blog comments, especially the ones that are more than just “I like your blog”, takes time and effort to post. Give your readers and commentors some credibility on their comments.
