What Can Social Media Do For Your Company?

Social Media: What Can It Do for You? (Business Edition)

Social media is the forefront of most internet activity today. With a little more than 2 billion active users throughout the top social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and a few other leading sites people rely on social media to keep them in-tune with society and up-to-date on the newest trends. From a business standpoint social media is a viable tool for business of all realms to engage and connect with customers. Today I want to talk about what social media outlets can achieve for your business and how your company can utilize them effectively.

Understand Social Networks

The first and most important part about using social media is taking each platform and learning how they operate. For example, Facebook and Twitter two of the top social media platforms work completely different from other platforms like Instagram or Pinterest. Understanding how each one operates and how consumers use them will make all the difference for adapting social media to fit your companies goals. Eric Tsai over at Design Damage put it as “having a map of the town”. Once you have knowledge of the streets around town, you feel more comfortable maneuvering around and locating places of interest in our case finding consumers.

Social media is filled with potential consumers, some actively searching for products/services and some waiting to be found and targeted by your business. It is your companies obligation to understand the markets and consumers who operate in these social realms. With a clear understanding how social media sites work you can move onto the next stage in adapting social media for your business.

Which Social Network Is Best for Your Business?

Now that we understand how social networks operate  and how potential consumers use them, the next step is to find what social media platform will suit your company most effectively. Before you go signing up with all these different social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, take some time and ask your self a couple simple questions. Ask yourself:

• What do you want your social media presence to achieve?
• Where can your target audience be reached?

After you have answered the what and where your company will best be suited, try pin-pointing just one major platform to test the waters. If social media is a fairly new concept to your company (assuming so since your reading this blog) than keep your first online experience simple. You don’t have to be on every platform to reach a wide array of potential consumers. A few statistics from Dustin.tv are as follows:

Considering who you want to reach and the platform they are most likely to be reached on is an important task. Most small businesses or companies adventuring into the realm of social media for the first time often make the mistake of constructing pages on sites with the most active users. Now I am not saying this is a terrible approach, but it is vital for your company to seek a platform that will best suit your companies goals and objectives. “Active user base is an important metric to know, but always remember that it’s not the size of the social network that matters. It’s your ability to connect with your audience.” – Dustin W. Stout

Using Social Media Effectively

Once you have successfully determined who your target audience is and which social media platform or platforms (if you decide multiple sites will benefit your companies social identity) you can start to develop consumer relationships by connecting and engaging with said potential consumers. However, tread with caution! This step, as important as it is, is also the step most companies get themselves in trouble with.

A lot of beginning companies tend to solely treat social media outlets as a way to advertise. This is a fantastic way to fail in attracting your target audience. How many times have you walked into a store and immediately are bombarded by sales employees trying to get you to try different products? Annoying? Same goes for social media. Nobody wants to see there feed blow up with sales promotions and ads about new upcoming or existing products every five minutes. Following a few simple principles will help maximize the effectiveness of your social media platform:

• Plan! Planning will be your most effective tool when dealing with the social network. Find out who will maintain your online profile, what you want your profile to achieve, and how you can work towards your goals.
• Start off slow. Being new to the social network you don’t want to overdue your presence.
• Start engaging. This means communicate with your followers. Ask questions and most importantly answer any concerns people might have.
• Share information about your company. This is a good way to raise brand awareness without being “that guy” on the news feed.
• Finally, learn the virtue of patience. Gaining 1 million+ followers is not something that happens overnight. Social media takes time, so understand your not going to be an overnight celebrity.

With these steps I am confident social media will be a huge benefit for your company! Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, and many others are valuable tools in reaching potential consumers. They are also amazing at raising brand awareness and getting your name out there. Just remember don’t make it more complicated then it needs to be and have patients.