Social media for business
How To Use Social Media To Promote Your Small Business
You have a small business and you haven’t bought into the social media craze? Guess what? Silence is no longer an option. People are online talking about your company as you read this, whether you like or not. If you don’t engage in the conversation, you risk losing your customers. But maybe you don’t have a choice as many small airports do in the State of California and across the United States. Many are owned by cities who don’t give them a dime and yet take money whenever they please. Those city managers force their airport managers to jump through hoops and political red tape to be able to promote their facilities. These airport managers have their hands tied in dealing with counties which just recently decided to launch a website, let alone a social media marketing strategy. So, I was asked by Michael McCarron, Public Information Office for San Francisco International Airport, to speak to the managers of small airports through California about the benefits of having a social media presence, so that they can convince their ‘bosses’ to allow them to open Facebook, Twitter and Google+ accounts, as well as to create blogs.
Here’s part of my presentation. I hope it helps you with your online social media strategy. If You have more ideas, please share them in the comments section at the bottom of the post. The more ideas, the better.
1. ASSESS YOUR ASSETS: The first action you should take before engaging in online marketing or social media marketing and engagement is to look at what are you’re trying to promote. What are your assets? Who are your target customers? It may seem obvious. But, A Bay Area airport had small planes for rent. But business was slow because they were simply targeting pilots trying to rack-up hours. Turns out there was a larger audience they could target through social media, tourists looking for aerial Bay Area tours. Business took-off.
2. SIGN-UP FOR SOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn. Facebook allows you to create a business page. Make sure you read the rules for businesses first. You can even ‘create a page’ through your personal account, if your business allows you to do so. That makes it easy for small business owners to manage it. On LinkedIn, every employee becomes your best advocate.
3. FIND A SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER: Managing multiple social networks is daunting. So, before you start posting content, requesting friends and adding followers, sign-up for a social media manager such as Ping.fm and HootSuite. It allows you to manage all of your accounts on one site and schedule your messages to deploy so you don’t have to sit over it all day. It also allows you to review the success of the tweets real-time with click-through statistics. And you can gather all the mentions of your brand, industry or search terms on Twitter through it as well. That’s for the free version. I suggest trying that first. As you get more involved in social media, I prefer SproutSocial.com. You have a choice on plans for nine-dollars to $49. There’s a 30-day free trial to make sure it works for you. What I like is that it allows you to take all of those you follow and the followers and create contacts out of them which you can manage in the system and track engagement. It also has one inbox for all of your messages from all the networks. Plus, it allows you to track check-ins at FourSquare and Gowalla.
4. POST UPDATES: It’s important to have content on your social media pages before you start adding friends and followers. When you try to find friends, they’re going to look at the page to see if they want to follow you. So you need to give them a reason to follow you first. Provide valuable information about the industry. Post pictures of your business or people enjoying your business. On YouTube, post videos of your business, customer experiences, and encourage customers to make their own. You can also ‘favorite’ other YouTube users’ videos and they will end up on your page. If you’re a small airport, posting cool aerobatic videos of the Patriots’ Jet Team is a possibility that would add value to those who ‘subscribe’ to your page. Also, share those videos on your other accounts such as Twitter, Facebook and even LinkedIn.
5. FIND FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS: Twitter and Google+ are easiest. Search keywords to find followers. On Twitter, If you’re a small airport, for example, search ‘pilot. You can also search ‘flying.’ Searching your town and surrounding areas as well to find key influencers, news outlets, bloggers and city officials. Also, search for large players in your market. For airports, try Boeing, Virgin America, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines. If they share your posts, you have the potential to reach thousands. I suggest adding just a few people at a time. On Google+, comment on one of their posts immediately. On Twitter, mention them in a post immediately. You can also comment on one of their posts or simply say that you look forward to following their great content. If it’s a reporter or blogger, give them story ideas and leads that have nothing to do with your business. Get them to trust you. To find fans on Facebook, it’s best to start with real friends and family. You can also pay as little as $100 to have an ad for your Facebook page syndicate across the network for a designated period of time.
Risks of using social media
Strategies to manage social media
Choose 1–3 platforms to focus on instead of having a small amount of content across all sites that doesn’t work as effectively. The overview below will help you decide which platforms are best for your online business goals.
Secure your business profiles
Your business will benefit from creating a business profile on all social platforms, because you will then own all the spaces that could reflect your business and fully control your branding and presence online.
Your business profile is your hub or landing page where your customers will find you. It will display all the information about your business. For example, a business profile may be represented by pages or accounts on:
Even if you do not intend to use a social media platform for your business, you should still secure your business profile as a placeholder. This will stop others from creating unauthorised profiles representing your business to deceive customers or ruin your brand.
Social media platform overview
Social media demographics
To effectively target your content to customers on different social media platforms, it is helpful to understand the platform demographics or characteristics that apply to the users.
How to promote your business locally
Recent consumer trend data from Shopify revealed that more than half of North American buyers changed the way they’ll shop going forward. One breakout trend has been support for local and small businesses. Here’s how you can take advantage of this:
Create a Google My Business profile
“Google My Business gives local businesses a separate online presence other than their website,” says Amy Falcione, founder of local marketing agency Big Picture Marketing. “Your listing gives a brief but detailed description of what your business offers and who you are.”
Amy explains that people use Google My Business to check and see if you’re legitimate. You can add photos and videos of your shop, and provide links to your website or appointment booking software. You can even give people a look inside your business to build trust and credibility with potential customers.
If someone decides they want to engage with your business, they have your contact information, website, and business address right in the listing. People can easily visit you online or in-person.
Join local events
A local event refers to any affair that attracts an audience from a local market. Artisan markets, craft shows, trade shows, and festivals are examples of events small businesses can promote themselves at locally.
“Right now, many local businesses are meeting online. They are using live streams and online meetups to show off products online and reach people at scale,” Amy tells Shopify. “But as areas start to open back up, we don’t want to overlook the power of local in-person events.”
Local events help small business owners meet customers one-on-one and create individual connections. People can touch, feel, and smell whatever you’re selling and interact with your products.
“Another way to promote your business locally is through workshops and lectures,” says Amy. “For example, if you run a candle making business, you can run local workshops to teach people how to make their own candles. It’s a great way to build your reputation in the community and increase brand awareness.”
Offer local delivery
People are buying more from independent businesses. Our consumer trend data shows that nearly a third of buyers bought something online and had it delivered to their home during the first three months of the pandemic.
Offering local delivery is a smart way to capitalize on this trend. When a customer orders something from your online store, you can personally deliver it to their doorstep. It serves as an alternative to traditional carrier shipping and in-store shopping, and is a thoughtful way to sell to concerned customers.
Get local press
Another great way to promote your business locally is by getting local press coverage. Getting a story in the local news is not only free but can also drive thousands of potential customers to your website or local shop.
“Start by creating a press list of all the publications you want coverage in,” Amy says, “then write your own press release and start pitching it to reporters. Make it easy for them by getting your own quotes and statistics and making your story sound newsworthy.”
Press releases that focus on community empowerment encourage local reporters to cover your business. If you can nail down getting local press, you’ll be able to capture your audience’s attention and interest in no time.
Free: Press Release Template
To help you get started, we put together this template to help you structure your story using a common press release format. You can replace each component with your own information and adapt it according to your needs.
Get the press release template delivered right to your inbox.
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Sources:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kymmcnicholas/2011/09/19/how-to-use-social-media-to-promote-your-small-business/
https://www.business.qld.gov.au/running-business/marketing-sales/marketing-promotion/websites-social-media/social-media
https://www.shopify.com/blog/how-to-promote-your-business
Social media for business
How to Use Social Media in Your Career
Do you think you should be on social media but don’t know where to start? What should you post, and how often should you post it? What’s more powerful, a like or a retweet? Here’s what you need to know about the most popular social media platforms for professional settings, whether you are looking to expand your network, build a business or find a new gig.
Social media is now a critical part of the way people in most walks of life communicate and a key part of how work gets done — from corporations to government. Reflecting how important social media can be, .
As social media has become more popular — an estimated — there are also more instances of people who have gotten in trouble for their social networking habits. The fact is that it’s impossible to separate the personal use of social from the professional, and everything you say online can and will be used against you. There are ways in which you can try to safeguard your privacy and control who sees particular content, but the onus is on you to be vigilant. So, the more seriously you can take your social media activities, the better.
Social media changes all the time, so it’s important to keep up with the evolution of the platforms and to keep looking for ways to optimize your use of the available the tools. (Twitter and Snapchat, for example, recently announced major changes that are described below.)
Risks of using social media
Strategies to manage social media
Choose 1–3 platforms to focus on instead of having a small amount of content across all sites that doesn’t work as effectively. The overview below will help you decide which platforms are best for your online business goals.
Secure your business profiles
Your business will benefit from creating a business profile on all social platforms, because you will then own all the spaces that could reflect your business and fully control your branding and presence online.
Your business profile is your hub or landing page where your customers will find you. It will display all the information about your business. For example, a business profile may be represented by pages or accounts on:
Even if you do not intend to use a social media platform for your business, you should still secure your business profile as a placeholder. This will stop others from creating unauthorised profiles representing your business to deceive customers or ruin your brand.
Social media platform overview
Social media demographics
To effectively target your content to customers on different social media platforms, it is helpful to understand the platform demographics or characteristics that apply to the users.
Getting started on social media
Hashtags are used for content searches. You add it to your content to make it discoverable to others online. Hashtags link your content to other content using the same hashtags so that customers can search for related posts. Hashtags link to search terms like location names, business types and other identifying items.
The more popular (trending) the hashtag you use, the more people will find your business using it. There are lists online of the most popular hashtags to help guide your selection.
Creating a theme for your social media content (e.g. with certain styles of photos and videos) is a fast way to create a professional and engaging profile. A theme for your social media can enhance the way you present your brand online and encourage the audience to follow your account.
Tips for social media themes
It is important to engage with your followers on your platforms. If they comment on your posts, for example, it is essential to ‘like’ or reply to increase audience engagement and make your fan feel appreciated.
All social media platforms are most effective when you have a high level of engagement. Algorithms and code built into these platforms highlight and share popular or trending content—this means that the more friends and followers or interactions you have, the more reach your content can have.
Frequency of posting refers to how many times a day you are uploading content to your social media profiles. Each social media site has a preferred frequency volume and you should post no more than that.
Tagging is a great way to get free exposure. Re-post a photo of your customer using your product and then tag that customer in the post on your business page. The photo will then appear on your customer’s page and all their community will also see your product, increasing your brand awareness and expanding your online reach.
Tagging is also highly effective when used as a part of cross-promotions with well-known persons, accounts or other businesses. Your business can tag or be tagged in content on different accounts, which will increase the number of people who can see and interact with your business content.
Social media glossary
Alerts
Algorithms
Analytics
Direct message
Emoji
Engagement
Follow
Follower
Handle
Hashtag
Live stream
Profile
Repost
Social media platform
Story
Thread
Trending
Viral
Provide Social Proofs to build trust in your product
Customer review and testimonials act as an influencer that promotes your product to the consumer in a good light. Even large organizations with heavy budgets set up social media command centers to monitor their social proofs. The reason why you need to provide and track social proof is that it is always better that the consumer make an informed decision by knowing other customers’ experiences, rather than after being influenced by social media advertisements. That is why it is mindful to make customer testimonials or user-generated content the face of your brand on social media.
Example: The Facebook page of GoPro is filled with testimonials and user-generated content. Users submit their epic pictures clicked by GoPro camera, which GoPro share on social media to make a greater impact on the potential buyers of their products.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/guides/business/social-media-for-career-and-business
https://www.business.qld.gov.au/running-business/marketing-sales/marketing-promotion/websites-social-media/social-media
https://www.fatbit.com/fab/6-creative-ways-promote-product-social-media/