You know that social media is important to increasing community awareness and vital to the growth of your business – but you’re not sure how to proceed. We’ve composed a list of the top four trending social media networks and how they’re applicable to promoting small businesses:
Facebook is more than just a way to share status updates, pictures and extend invitations to events – it’s a well-oiled, multi-faceted marketing machine now. The development of varied applications that can integrate with Facebook are phenomenal and can turn your business page into an effective and efficient marketing tool to increase community engagement, raise brand awareness and gather prospective customer information.
With applications such as ShortStack to run contests, administer polls and surveys, and fully manage analytics of these efforts, you can increase engagement. NetworkedBlogs is an integrated blog application that automatically publishes blogs to Facebook (and other networks) to increase traffic and SEO rankings.
Twitter is a micro-blogging site that allows for you to post updates containing up to 140 characters – and ends up on every follower’s feed. When used properly, Twitter can demonstrate your business’s expertise by searching for keywords and hashtags (which are essentially links to a page of content that contain a specific word or phrase preceded by a pound sign. An example of this is #landscaping) and answering general questions relevant to your business. Twitter also has what are called “Trending Topics” that change throughout the day, reflecting what the Twitter world is talking most about – and your business can use these keywords and connect it back to your business to push you to the top of the search rankings.
If you are a service-based business, this can be a great way to demonstrate expertise and build trust and brand awareness with a targeted demographic. If you are a product-based business, you can directly link your audience to your website for purchase with relevant hashtags.
Instagram is a photo and video sharing application that is primarily accessed through mobile devices. This platform that allows for users to take pictures, apply digital filters to them and associate them with hashtags. (You just can’t escape the hashtag trend!) In this platform, users can search for photos associated with particular hashtags, as well as “explore” other users’ photos based on pictures they’ve previously “liked” and users they follow.
This platform visually depicts your company’s brand, products and/or services, but serves as a communication channel to connect with your audience. Share photos and short videos (no they don’t have to be professional!), stories from your customers, stories relevant to your business, answer questions, and get creative! What are some fun things about your business that you can share? Are there current event elements (such as the World Cup) that you can visually integrate with your brand? What unique and fun qualities about your brand can be conveyed in a picture?
Pinterest is a virtual bulletin board where users can find and curate images and videos. Unlike other photo-sharing sites, Pinterest emphasizes users to discover and curate other users’ content instead of creating their own. These photos and/or videos can directly link back to your website or blog, increasing web traffic and allowing for your audience to connect with your brand.
In terms of business relevancy, think of Pinterest as a way to showcase the unique facets of your business. Pinterest allows you to leverage visual assets and infographics as a social currency – garnering likes and “repins,” the equivalent of shares or retweets – in place of sharing web pages, blogs, or other text-based media. If you are a photographer, Pinterest can be a wonderful way to showcase your portfolio, while a landscaper might highlight garden tips or beautiful backyard ideas. The idea behind this site is to obtain the endorsement of other users, who will share it with their friends and cultivate a network of support for your brand.
Before you can effectively use social media to grow your business, make sure you have a strategy in place first to build the foundation for these efforts. Once you’ve identified your brand, messaging, target audience, resources and defined your goals for social media, you will understand social media’s role in your business and how to effectively use it to reach your goals. This just takes a little bit of self-discovery, creative development and time commitment, but it is completely worth the investment in the long run! QCBN
Chalease Linderman is the owner and community development director of
CommunIT. She can be reached at 928-925-4838, on LinkedIn, on Facebook at Facebook.com/AZCommunIT, or followed on Twitter at Twitter.com/AZCommunIT. For more information, visit the website at www.azcommunit.com
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