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March 5, 2014 at 5:46 am #1160288Up::0
Hi John,
Nice post.
You’ve probably concluded by now that corporate social media use isn’t going away any time soon.
Companies that interact with their clients and consumers on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn – or any number of other sites in the always-growing social market – have a more loyal customer base of high-frequency buyers than those who don’t. If that doesn’t convince you, here are 3 basic reasons to create company accounts on the popular networking sites ASAP.
1. They’re free. How many other components of your marketing plan can you say that about?
2. They’re easy and relatively quick to use—just be sure to post relevant content.
3. They’re where your customers are! What better way to reach your current and potential customers than the networks on which they already spend an average of 3 hours a day?Cheers,
RodneyMarch 5, 2014 at 10:09 am #1160289Up::0Hi John,
I just want you to know how much I value your posts.
Next question if I may (and when I ask this I hope I am asking not just for myself)…
In order to have a business page on most social media outlets, one also needs a personal page. (obviously this personal page is kept professional with a sprinkle of personality.)
So when posting to social media does that mean I should be posting about my latest blog entry once in the personal page and once in the business page.
eg. 2 posts in face book(1 for the personal page, 1 for the business page), 2 in G+, multiple but vary it up in twitter. (of course post about other things as well), and comment on others posts.What about Linked-In? Amongst my connections very few people post anything apart from career updates.
Or should the Social Media business pages be a mere business card type of page.
That’s it for now. Thanks again.
March 7, 2014 at 1:33 pm #1160290Up::0I.T. Guaranteed, post: 185614 wrote:So when posting to social media does that mean I should be posting about my latest blog entry once in the personal page and once in the business page.
eg. 2 posts in face book(1 for the personal page, 1 for the business page), 2 in G+, multiple but vary it up in twitter. (of course post about other things as well), and comment on others posts.What about Linked-In? Amongst my connections very few people post anything apart from career updates.
Or should the Social Media business pages be a mere business card type of page.
Hi John!
Each Social Media Platform is slightly different.
Facebook: yes you are right – you do need to have a personal profile to be able to make a business page but you don’t have to link the 2 publicly – ie. you could keep your personal page for friends etc and your business page strictly for business.
The benefits of having a business page over a profile page is that you can do paid advertising in the form of promoted posts, paying for likes (ie. traffic to your page) and sponsored posts where you can target your audience.
The other benefit of a page is that they show up in a Google Search. For example if you name your page the same name as your business and someone does a google search for you they will likely get your page in the results…along with other only listings you have. Gives you that bit more presence online.Personally I use my personal profile aswell as my page to promote my business because to me, micro business owners ARE their business so its hard to tell where the personal ends and the business begins!! As long as you’re ok with “behaving” yourself on Facebook – no drunken shots or excessive swearing, LOL! Common sense but you’d be surprised!!
Linkedin and G+ you’d just set up the one account in your business name.
March 7, 2014 at 1:35 pm #1160291Up::0Victoria Cavallo, post: 185790 wrote:Hi John!Each Social Media Platform is slightly different.
Facebook: yes you are right – you do need to have a personal profile to be able to make a business page but you don’t have to link the 2 publicly – ie. you could keep your personal page for friends etc and your business page strictly for business.
The benefits of having a business page over a profile page is that you can do paid advertising in the form of promoted posts, paying for likes (ie. traffic to your page) and sponsored posts where you can target your audience.
The other benefit of a page is that they show up in a Google Search. For example if you name your page the same name as your business and someone does a google search for you they will likely get your page in the results…along with other only listings you have. Gives you that bit more presence online.Personally I use my personal profile aswell as my page to promote my business because to me, micro business owners ARE their business so its hard to tell where the personal ends and the business begins!! As long as you’re ok with “behaving” yourself on Facebook – no drunken shots or excessive swearing, LOL! Common sense but you’d be surprised!!
Linkedin and G+ you’d just set up the one account in your business name.
Apologies, I meant to address that to Jay!
March 8, 2014 at 1:41 am #1160292Up::0I gather social media is largely about establishing/maintaining relationships with your customers rather than making money directly as a result. I use hootsuite so I can simultaneously update my facebook, google plus and twitter. Posts can be scheduled in advance. I do a week at a time on a Sunday night.
Cheers
Angus Pryor
http://www.galwijihomestead.com
http://www.mysteryshoppingguide.com.auMarch 8, 2014 at 2:20 pm #1160293Up::0This thread illustrates some of the elements that business owners feel confusion over. As John originally stated, while engagement is one objective, generating traffic back to your business site is another. With the changing conditions of all social media, you have to stay up with what is happening, for instance FB adverts are really big right now with their ability to be laser targeted.
The tacit implication with all of this is that your social media activity is better managed by a web services professional, that is what they do, manage social media for their clients. But of course budgets are tight, but it depends on how much you want results.
Linked In by the way has a very active community, there are many groups in each business area where discussions are taking place-it is certainly not just for updating your resume, you can forge relationships with potential clients and partners, it is pretty huge actually.
Blogging is a skill, and it ties in with all of your social media activity, being able to articulate your business area into interesting and useful communications does not come easy to many business owners…once again this is where your local web services and marketing people come in; you just have to decide to invest in those services to gain the results.
March 10, 2014 at 9:00 am #1160294Up::0With so many social media sites out there it’s hard to know which ones are going to get the best results. A good place to start would be to find out which social sites your target market frequents. If you’re selling women’s clothing or shoes a Pinterest page or Instagram page would be a great place to start. Selling tech services? Google+ and Twitter may be the best sites.
March 11, 2014 at 4:28 am #1160295Up::0arrowwise, post: 185009 wrote:In general the only ones making money directly out of social media are those enticing, training and managing businesses to be part of it. For the rest of us it a periphery of your broader marketing strategy, with results much harder to measure.Not necessarily. I’ve gained new clients as a direct result of my use of Twitter. Quite often, the tweets that do the job are nothing to do with my business and are “chit-chat” style tweets.
For example, an ex-WA weather presenter that I follow on Twitter tweeted about how Channel 9 always run late with their programs and he was sitting there waiting for something to start. I replied to him, someone else also replied to him, saw my tweet and checked out my profile. Turned out she was looking for some transcription help so she messaged me and the rest, as they say, is history.
Likewise, I recently tweeted about a family trip to Busselton using the #tweetBusselton hash tag. A local psychologist saw it, checked out my website and emailed me as she had been thinking about outsourcing her transcription.
I don’t like the way a lot of people/businesses schedule all their tweets – it totally misses the point IMHO. It sounds a cliche, but it really is all about the interactions and relationship-building.
But before you even start, you need to work out where your audience hang out, otherwise you may as well not bother at all.
March 11, 2014 at 4:38 am #1160296Up::0I.T. Guaranteed, post: 185378 wrote:Hi John,Awesome post. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
You did ask for questions and I have a few.
First up.At the moment I feel like I am blogging / tweeting /posting to an almost empty room.
Is this a chicken / egg situation. How do the followers find you? or is that what we are all doing here in this forum right now?
On twitter I notice lots of people follow me in the hope that I will follow back? What are your thoughts on this tactic? Seems a very slow way to attract the wrong target audience to me…
Thanks again. more questions to come if thats ok.
Hi Jay
I know you addressed your question to John, but I wanted to add my tuppence worth if that’s okay?
Re following – don’t follow people in order to get followed back. Follow people that are your target client group to start with, and those who look interesting/tweet useful stuff.
In order to get yourself followers retweet what others have shared, chat with them (comment on updates they’ve shared etc.), mention them in some way (the Paper.li app is handy for that) – basically, get their attention and from there you can build the relationship.
Using Twitter is no different to real-life networking. I’m sure you wouldn’t barge into a networking event and work the room talking about nothing but yourself and handing out business cards to everyone you meet (well, I would hope not!). Likewise, on Twitter you need to keep a balance between sharing your own content/talking about yourself and sharing other peoples’ stuff/interacting.
HTH
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