Getting Your Business Socially Connected
Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace keep friends and family connected, but they are being used by businesses more and more to promote their products and services. In fact, some sites such as LinkedIn and FastPitch are designed with the professional in mind by allowing people to connect with co-workers, employers, employees, and other people within their industry. There are even some sites (I-Meet and ResearchGATE, for example) that are industry-specific. Before you choose a site to promote your business, do some research to be sure that if will fit your needs.
A business of any size could benefit from using social networking sites. Large businesses may have accounts on several different websites with employees such as public relations specialists or department managers devoted to their maintenance. Self-employed people are able to find work by networking with other people within their industry, targeting a customer base, and making themselves customers.
Social networking sites can be set up at any time, but you must have the time to update them consistently or that you can hire someone to update them for you. Like most of life, the frequency of updates should be balanced. Too little activity will bore customers, and they will quickly move on to something more interesting. On the other hand, do not bombard customers with sales information because this will lead them begin blocking your updates. In addition, the content of the updates needs to vary. Instead of having a non-stop advertisement, let the customers learn more about the business as a whole. If you are self-employed let the clients know what kind of work-related activities you have been doing.
Social networking sites can be updated from nearly anywhere as long as there is a suitable device and Internet access. Access to the site is something that must be determined from the beginning. Obviously self-employed people will have access to their own sites. However, larger businesses must decide who will be able to post to the site. The employees that gain access should be trustworthy, responsible, and good at marketing. Should the employee leave the business, login information should be changed to protect the business’s security.
Social networking is likely a good investment of time for any business. Gone are the days of cold calls and handing out fliers because word-of-mouth advertising has become lightning fast. Now businesses can add key words to their profiles so that customers can find them more easily. They can also monitor the demographics of people who visit their profile so that they can tailor marketing to certain groups of people. Colleagues are able to share information among themselves, enhancing the ability of businesses to grow.
Although anyone can create an account on a social networking site, there is an art to running one well. Ability to post to a site should be limited to only a few people to ensure privacy and consistency. Businesses should post things that make them stand out in the customer’s mind (in a good way) so that sales will begin to increase. Frequency of posts must not be either too often or too rare, and keeping the target audience in mind will help businesses create effective networks to boost sales.
Greg Henderson, a California-based businessman with over 11 years in SEO/SEM, provided this piece based on personal endeavors and education in search engine optimization with a concentration on content optimization for the social media future. His current projects include a background checks website Easy Background Checks as well as a marriage records website Genealinks.
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