What is social media?
Social media has been around for a few years now. Facebook launched in 2004 and Twitter soon followed in 2006. There are many variations on these two themes but all follow a similar format. They’re very easy to set up, manage and customise with your company branding. Sometimes referred to as Micro Blogs they can help communicate with your clients and drive more traffic to your website. Most are free and provide a powerful way to display interactive media on your website without the expense of hosting all these services yourself.
There are lots of Micro Blogs to choose from. Here are few popular ones that offer good support:
Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Youtube, Vimeo, Flickr and Digg
Why should my business invest the time?
Most small companies shy away from social media, believing they simply don’t have the time to use them. If you meet a potential client face to face, you exchange business cards, follow up with a call and add this person to your email list. Social media is an easy way to network along side face to face contact. It’s not a direct fix for falling sales but rather a way of networking to attract new. As with face to face contact your audience need to know you’re 100% genuine. It allows you to understand your market and monitor users needs.
Will I get any return?
It’s a good idea to plan first and take time to understand your market. Following other companies is a great way to start. You’re not guaranteed a return when using social media, but you can experiment, watch your results closely and plan the best way to network with potential future clients.
Let’s say you set up a Twitter account. This includes a feed to your website. You start tweeting useful expert content with links to your blog. You add the occasional tweet about your products and you setup Google Analytics to track the progress. You’re now feeding your site with up to date content and gaining new followers to your tweets.
To further compliment the above, you add a “Subscribe to my newsletter” and a visible advert “Free gift to every new subscription”. Now your site is benefiting from the new traffic, people are joining you on Twitter and signing up for your company newsletter.
Your site now ranks higher in search engines due to the increased traffic and you have three new ways of communicating with clients.
It’s also possible to mix and match other social sites. For instance Facebook or Google+ will give visitors the sense of belonging and allow them to comment, add photos and share views with your company. You can run a live feed talking about your activities, for example if you are at an event, and let them know your latest and greatest products.
Conclusion:
You’ll have a great way to communicate with your clients and gain feedback. Your site will rank higher in search engines and benefit from the spike in additional traffic. You may get additional enquiries and these could lead to a potential sale. It’s easy to join and after the initial outlay in time it’s easy to update on the go using mobile devices. So what are you waiting for, get tweeting and blogging now!
WordPress links
Google’s mobile friendly algorithm rewards responsive sites
How social media can benefit small business
Why WordPress makes for a great content management system
How to password protect your WordPress site
How to disable comments on your WordPress site
How to add comments to your WordPress posts
Removing the URL field from the WordPress comments form
How to Import a Microsoft Word Document into WordPress
Social media is a great tool for communicating with your consumer base, especially if most of them come from a younger age bracket. It’s also a great way of making your brand more visible.
Great website. Plenty of helpful information here. I’m sending it to a few buddies ans also sharing in delicious. And certainly, thank you for your sweat!
I have been reading out a few of your articles and it’s pretty clever stuff. I will make sure to bookmark your website.
What do you suggest is the simplest approach to get started?
I was thinking also about sending a christmas card out to all my contacts from the Iberotel – it’s not a massive list maybe 20, but it will get me moving forward.
What about putting a newletter together with packages and products for sale – Is this a chimp account ??
i have been looking at some affiliate programs with other coaches to sell their products – I will send you details to your email.
Your client list will grow over time and MailChimp is a great place to store all those clients for future Newsletters. They have some striking templates and all tested so you don’t suffer bounced mail. A web designer will provide you with a custom template to match your website.
If you are looking to make money then affiliate programs like Amazon allow you to promote their products on your website. Websites with a lot of traffic usually benefit from these schemes.
Many thanks for this article, it has opened my eyes and helped me realise how important social media is. All the best.