Jan 11
21
There is a plethora of Social Media articles in various industries. I have done presentation to Accounting to Remodeling Associations. The hot topic is across the Board “How to Leverage Social Media”.
1st – What is Social Media? According to Wikipedia, “Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media use web-based technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue.”
So basically – being Social or using Media is not new. What’s new is that platform we are engaging on. This web-based type of media causes a whole new way of Marketing.
So think of this. Each person (consumer or business) that is using Social Media has created a Sphere of Influence. Their voice can be shared – instantly. People just need basic skills to share information over the web. And nobody is controlling what they say.
So the conversation is going on with or without you – which is good or bad. Have you ever done a Google search and found your name in a place you had no idea about? Why not participate and give your customers something to talk about – you!
How do you do this? Well you need to make sure you engage with your community.
1) Share information that will help your community become better consumers. This also shows off YOUR expertise!
2) Stay active. You don’t know when your community is online, so you need to make sure you are in front of them when they are there. But know the frequency expectation of the platform you are on. Twitter users expect more updates than Facebook. You don’t want to annoy your community where they “turn you out”
3) Be diverse in your updates. Don’t just do the same updates over and over. Mix it up with fresh content, various medias (ie pictures, videos)
4) Respond to your community!! If they make a comment – good or bad – respond to them!
I hope this will help you start thinking about how & why to use Social Media.
