Social media can provide a great opportunity to connect with your customers, find new business and share your expertise. Are you getting the most benefit out of social media? Many people don’t know where to start, some make the mistake of not integrating their social presence with their web site, and others add too much personal information or add too much of a sales pitch.
Here are a few guidelines:
- Link back to your website – Whether it is Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, or email marketing using a service like ConstantContact make sure you are also giving people a reason to keep coming back to your website.
- Set up a publishing schedule – Plan how often you will update and have some seasonal or general topics in reserve in case you get too busy. You can even use tools that let you schedule your posts ahead of time.
- Share your expertise – Do not make your posts one sales pitch after another or people will tune you out. Share news, expertise, information you find valuable, links, photos, and special promotions.
- Build relationships – Make it a conversation! Respond to all who comment. Think about what makes your word-of-mouth marketing and face-to-face interactions positive and transfer that attitude to social media platforms.
It can take a while to build a successful online presence, but start where you can and stick to a schedule you can manage. It doesn’t cost a lot of money, and the return for the time spent building relationships can be significant.