DO YOU USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO PROMOTE YOUR BUSINESS?

DO YOU USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO PROMOTE YOUR BUSINESS?

If the answer is no I am sure your competitors are. What do I mean by social media, well as opposed to reading a newspaper or listening to views, with social media you are able to interact with the website and interact with other visitors to the site, it is a two way street that allows you to communicate with your customers.

Did you know that:-

• twitter averages more than 40 million tweets per day, MySpace has more than 250 million subscribers and on Facebook there are over 600 million searches and 30 billion page views a month.

The use of social media might not appeal to all of us, that’s not what matters it’s what our customers want and it is far more effective than direct advertising and it can be self generating if it creates interest and causes comments from your followers.

So what are the most effective, it really depends which market you want to target, generally if you want to aim at a younger market then Facebook is the best, if you want to target a business market then LinkedIn would be a better option. You are able to create company pages on both options and you can post regular news, offers, job opportunities and company background and all at no cost. There are many companies that take the opportunity very seriously and pay more focus to developing these pages than their websites and employ one of the many experts in Social Media Marketing, take a look at Chessington World of Adventure on Facebook as an example of what I mean.

In person, or even in one-on-one e-mail, there is a practical limit to how many people you can meaningfully connect with in a given amount of time. But in an online community or weblog, you can carry on public conversations, potentially reaching hundreds or even thousands of people with the same effort as a single e-mail. For conversations that do not need to be confidential, such as a discussion of market trends or of companies and products in a particular market segment, a public discussion will increase visibility for your company and provide additional assistance in identifying your potential partners and connecting with them. Your entire network becomes a part-time business development staff for your company.

Networking online allows you to reach more people with less effort; to more quickly identify and connect with the right people; and to reduce travel time and expense, both local and long-distance. You do not need to attend business networking meetings to extend your database it’s just a click away so start using these resources now.

UTILISING LINKEDIN FOR BUSINESS

ARE YOU ON LINKEDIN AND DO YOU UTILISE IT FOR YOUR BUSINESS

LinkedIn is a business related social network site founded in December 2002 and now has 120 million registered users and this is growing at a rate of two new members per second. It is a wealth of knowledge, just ask a question and there are hundreds of experts out there willing to help and answer your question, engage with these people and interact in their discussions to help your business grow.

If you are not on LinkedIn or if you haven’t created a company page on the site here are some of the facts why you should:

•  120 million registered users
• Growing at a rate of two users per second
• Over 200 countries are represented
• Over half of the users are outside the USA
• More than 2 million companies have a company page

LinkedIn is a great asset to your business and can save you time and money and be far more effective than advertising here are some reasons why:

•  Compelling and relevant content will grab the attention of potential customers/business partners and increase brand visibility
• You can respond almost instantly to industry developments and become heard in your field
• It can be much cheaper and far more effective than traditional advertising, recruitment and promotional activities
• LinkedIn content can indirectly boost links to website content by appearing in universal search results, improving search traffic and online sales
• It gives access to a wealth of experienced professionals when recruiting
• It can help you gather valuable business and market place intelligence

If you are just starting out on LinkedIn or starting a new company page then the priority has to be completing your profile as fully as possible, networking is all about relationships. The more people and businesses know about you, the closer that relationship. Once you have completed your profile then look for connections start with people you have previously worked with and then once you are connected, search their connections and see who else you know and can connect with. You should also explore the Groups section and join groups that have an affiliation with your area of business expertise, study the daily bulletins for these groups and see where you can add benefit to the dialogue, this allows you to reach like minded professionals, become seen as an expert in your field and also increase your knowledge. This will lead to recommendations and help build new relationships. The more interaction on LinkedIn the more respect you will gain and it will assist your business to grow and direct traffic to your website. In reverse you should ensure that you post the LinkedIn logo on a prominent place on your website and link it to your company or personal LinkedIn page.

With so many minds able to network together, crowd sourcing and open innovation allow people to work together on a massive scale. By involving your online contact network in your company, you can benefit from:

• The wisdom and creativity of people outside your own workforce
• The increased likelihood of people picking up on and developing innovative ideas   that might otherwise go unrecognised
• The outside perspective of customers – and potential customers – who may see issues and opportunities you’re unaware of
• Increased customer loyalty and brand advocacy that comes from having a say in your company’s offer
• Lower costs when developing new products or enhancements, and more certain  market success for them

One of the other great things about LinkedIn is its interaction with other social media sites, so if you tweet on Twitter it will simultaneously appear on your LinkedIn profile. This helps to reinforce your name as regular status updates keeps your name at the forefront of people’s minds.

If you need to know more about LinkedIn there are social media experts in your area that can provide you with this information, search them out on the web.