By now, I’m sure you all know that you need a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a blog, and a LinkedIn page – but why? Once you’ve got the accounts set up, what do you write? What do your customers want? How do you use these things to your advantage? If you don’t fully understand why all these social networking tools are crucial additions to your business marketing arsenal, read on!
- First of all, keep your page organized! Create different photo albums for different events, rather than having every picture in one place.
- Post images of your products – photos with satisfied customers using your product are even better!
- Tag all the people in the photos. This puts your photo in their friends’ news feeds and increases your connections.
- Use the Facebook Questions tool to poll people through your page. You can make it fun, like “Where should the staff have lunch today?”
- Link your Twitter to your Facebook, that way you can have twice the impact by posting once!
- Keep your tweets relevant. Think of a tweet as a 140-character headline – brief, attention-getting, and informative.
- Ask a lot of questions. The beauty of Twitter is that you can really have a conversation – since the post length is so short, it forces people to respond to one another for more information.
Blog
- It’s hard to write entry after entry (trust me!), but inspiration can come from many places. Read other industry blogs to see what the hot topics are, explain your company’s manufacturing process, tell the story of your company’s creation or name origin, begin with a quote and describe why it’s meaningful, answer FAQs that customers have had recently…
- If you get blogger’s block, don’t sweat it! Once a week is a good timetable for most blogs (every other week is OK too).
- Join professionally relevant groups, but don’t over-market yourself. Remember, this is for networking – B2B stuff.
- Post new info about your company, ask for people’s opinions about your new product, link to your blog entries. Approach it in a “hey! we’re doing X now – if you know anyone who needs X, I can help them out!” way.
Social Media Management Is Key
By linking all your social media outlets together, you’ll save time – services like Hootsuite are great for keeping everything in one place. Ask your web designer to move your social media logos higher on your web page – if they’re towards the top or the menu bar, potential customers are more likely to click on them! Also include all social network links on your site’s contact page. Letting customers know they can find out more about you (with just a click!) offers visible proof that you’re a legitimate, trustworthy business. It’s all about accessibility and transparency!
