November 2009

Social media is part of the furniture now for businesses wanting to market themselves online. The question is, how could it help yours? Well we’ve compiled some helpful tips that might inspire you to get interacting with your audience.

Be yourself

One of the many questions businesses have when creating social networks is “should I be business-like or not?” OK, if you’re a solicitors, no-one will expect you to talk like a 16 year old, but there is still room for strong personality to shine through. Most writing about businesses focuses too much on what the business does, and not enough on how the service or product can help the potential customer. So in short: keep it personal, talk directly to your audience and make sure what you have to say is informative.

Write helpful content

When people are looking at your site, it’s brilliant if they can take something away from it. Be that an interesting article they bookmarked, or just some general advice relating to your services, your audience will hopefully start to see you as a source of good information. For example you could write a blog about your businesses specialism. A gardening centre could write helpful advice about the four seasons and how first time planters can make sure their plants flower at the right time. While you can promote things like product launches, it’s always nice to keep your audience informed with useful information at the same time.

….if you run a cafe, you could set up a Facebook page and build a small community of fans who like your restaurant. Then you could post updates, special offers and exclusive deals for those who sign up to your page.

Use Facebook and Twitter (but only if it makes sense)

Facebook and Twitter are great pieces of technology, however only if used in the right way. So what do you need to make it work? Well if you have things to say to people who like your products, that they will find interesting, maybe you should consider using one or both of these services. For example if you run a cafe, you could set up a Facebook page and build a small community of fans who like your restaurant. Then you could post updates, special offers and exclusive deals for those who sign up to your page. Starbucks is an example of a chain using Twitter to interact with it’s customers, taking suggestions and answering questions about their service in a quick fire way.

Get feedback

There’s nothing like free market research, and social media can help you do just that. By connecting with people who like your products (and some who don’t) you can ask for suggestions, ideas and other feedback from your community. This can be really useful when launching new products or changing old ones. Social media can prove invaluable in helping you tailor your products to those who use it. Hopefully if you have a good product, their faith in what you do could translate to some handy word of mouth promotion.

Hopefully this has given you an insight into how social networking can help your business. If you need information on taking your business online, why not read our guide here. Stay tuned for more guides and if there is anything you would like to see covered, just let us know.