Social media marketing for small business. Is it right for your business?

There are a few ways social media marketing can help your business:

• Spread the word on your brand or on your business to gain awareness and attention
• Maintains a presence and provides a source of information or communication for your existing customers
• Allows you to interact and service your customers
• Allows you to present yourself to new potential customers

Before you dive into social media marketing, you need to ask yourself a few questions:

• Do I need social media or social media marketing?
• If I do need social media, which social network(s) will work best for my business?
• Am I ready to commit the time and work into keeping up with my social media accounts?

Often businesses that are online or want to be online mention social media as something that they need, but they don’t know why. Not all businesses need social media. There are some industries or types of businesses where it would not make much sense. There are also many social networks out there. If you want to be on all of them, you can, but it’ll just be very expensive and very time-consuming. So it’s wise to pick and choose the most important one(s) for your business.

Here are some of most popular social networks with a brief description and types of business they work well for:

Notes:
B2C = Business-to-Consumer (retail)
B2B = Business-to-Business

• Facebook
  The largest social network in the world. Better for B2C businesses than it is for B2B businesses.
• Google+
  Pronounced “Google Plus”. It is Google’s own social network and according to Wikipedia, as of January 2013, it is the second largest social network in the world. Better for B2C businesses than it is for B2B businesses.
• Foursquare
  Location-based social network used on mobile devices. Users of Foursquare “check in” on their mobile devices when they are at a business’s physical location. Great for B2C businesses.
• Instagram
  Photo-sharing social network currently only available to Google Android and Apple iOS device users. Great for B2C businesses, especially those in the creative fields.
• LinkedIn
  Social network for career professionals and other business-minded individuals.
  Great for B2B businesses, entrepreneurs, and career professionals.
• Pintrest
  A pin-board-style photo sharing social network that allows users to pin images of a certain theme within their collection. Great for B2C business, especially those that are in the creative fields.
• Tumblr
  Pronounced “tumbler”. It is a micro-blogging platform and social network that allows its users to post multimedia and other content. Great for both B2C businesses and B2B businesses.
• Twitter
  A micro-blogging service and social network that allows it users to post messages up to 140-characters in length known as “tweets”. Great for both B2C businesses and B2B businesses.
• YouTube
  Google-owned video-sharing service and social network that allows users to upload and watch videos. Great for B2C businesses and B2B businesses.

Many businesses that have social media account, often make one or more of the following mistakes:

• Their social media accounts are not maintained
• Their social media accounts are seldom maintained or are not maintained on a regular basis
• They fall for the common fallacy that “more is better” (more followers, more Likes, etc.)
• They use their social media accounts incorrectly

Not maintaining your social media account or maintaining it infrequently will only cause your followers to lose interest. On the other hand, over-using your social media account will likely annoy your customers.

Sometimes, your customers will attempt to interact with you on social media so you need to be ready to respond and be ready to respond correctly. That means you need to be monitoring your social media account and be ready to respond accordingly. If your business has a social media presence then keeping your social media updated may be just as important as keeping your office or storefront in order. Your customers or potential customers may see your social media page(s) first, before they see your office or storefront.

Have a conversation through social media is not like having a conversation on the phone or by e-mail. First, your response may be limited because you are limited in how much you can write (on Twitter, for example) and your conversation is visible to the public so it is not only your recipient that will see your response but potentially the entire general public. So not only do you need to think about your recipient but you have to keep a much larger audience in mind.

More isn’t better. There is no easier way to annoy your friends on social networks than to bug them and ask them to Like your page or to follow you because they are your friend. Some businesses will go even further and buy themselves Likes or fake followers. Do yourself a favor and avoid doing any of the aforementioned.

If you are buying any Likes or followers, you are wasting your money. For a moment it may “look good” that you have a large number of Likes or followers. If users pay attention and dig a little deeper, it is not hard to see when someone has bought fake Likes and/or fake followers. One easy way to tell is the ratio of Likes or followers compared to those who are actively interacting with the business. We’ve seen Facebook pages with 22,000 Likes and two or three occasional Likes at the most for the business’s postings. That’s a pretty obvious sign.

Would you rather have 10,000 followers with 10 resulting sales or would you rather have 1,000 followers and 100 resulting sales? Obviously, 100 sales is probably better than 10 sales. Many make the mistake of focusing on quantity instead of quality. When you start, you can start small but focus on quality. That means, interact with those that have a genuine interest and care about your brand and about your business then grow your audience from there.

Your plan of action should be:

• If you’re considering social media, figure out first if you need social media
• If you’ve decided that you do need social media, decide which social networks will suit your business best
• Start with you current base of customers or an audience that are genuinely interested
• Monitor your account frequently
• Update on a consistent schedule

You’ll want to avoid:

• Asking your friends to Like or follow you
• Avoid buying Likes or followers
• Avoid turning your social media account into an advertising billboard (no one wants to constantly read ads)

Some companies have entire departments handling their social media campaigns. While we could not explain everything in this one article, we hope some of these tips are helpful and made social media marketing a little clearer for you

At NetServices, we provide Social Media Marketing to small businesses so if you have any questions, feel free to contact us.