How important is social media for your business?
With an overwhelming amount of time spent online spent on social media, it’s not something to ignore, nor is it something easy to do well. New Plains MediaMedia’s Online Snapshot report from Vendasta takes a quick assessment of the most established social media channels — Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.
Social media represents some of the highest utility and most targeted advertising opportunities, so keep that in mind for your advertising mix. There are a few principles that apply to all social media and its use for your business.
Social Media Fundamentals
Stake Your Claim in Social Media
As social media sites continue to open, grow and evolve, make sure you claim your business’s spot and a coveted company-specific URL, i.e. facebook.com/yourbusinessname. Fill out your profile and give your business an identity, even if you’re not sure what you’re going to do with it. At least you won’t be absent if that community wants to engage your business in the conversation.
Take care to set the parameters for interacting with your business. In Facebook for instance, particularly if you are not going to be actively managing your presence, be sure to restrict posts to your wall entirely or restricted only to fans. This will prevent malicious activity from finding an easy opening.
Your social media profiles are also important backlinks for your business, helping your SEO.
Set-up Your Social Media Alerts
Once you’ve established a presence in social media, make sure you set-up email notifications so you are made aware of any social media activity without spending all day or having to check back frequently on each social media page.
One of the top uses in business for social media is as a customer service channel. Consumers often go to social media seeking help from a business, so be ready to get those alerts and respond.
Be a Follower/Liker
If you want to take one step forward into social media, start by following, becoming a fan or otherwise building your social media network by finding customers, vendors and like-minded businesses. This initiates a relationship that is often returned. Business and consumers you follow or like are very likely to do the same back.
The internet is really a battle between Google — the most visited sites on the internet — and Facebook — the most time spent on the internet. With 1.09 billion daily active Facebook users worldwide, 90% of them on mobile according to Facebook, more than 20% of time spent online is spent on social media. Facebook takes the lion share of that, with over 1,000 minutes per month per user, according to comScore.
How to Use Facebook
With such a dominant position, Facebook business pages have even shown in Google search results when a business doesn’t have a website or alongside the website in a branded search (for the company by name). There are two things that matter most with Facebook.
Build Up Your Fans
Businesses that have more fans appear more favorably to Facebook users than businesses that have fewer likes or none. Try to build a respectable number of fans compared to your top competitors. Facebook “Likes” are a public vote of confidence in your business.
Be An Active Follower
Key to building up likes/fans is to comment and share content from your consumers and like-minded businesses.
Promote Your Content
Probably the highest use of social media is to promote your content, preferably driving your customers to your website. The more frequently and consistently you promote the highest quality content on Facebook, the more powerful its network effects can have.
How to Use Twitter
According to Twitter, 43% of its users will shop a local business they follow and 60% have made a purchase because of a company’s tweet. The largest independent social media company after Facebook (which owns Instagram), Twitter had 120 million users according to comScore in October 2015 and is probably best compared to Facebook’s Newsfeed with a much more active audience to that particular feature. That’s the reason breaking news often appears first on Twitter and is tracked most closely as it develops.
The steps for Twitter are very similar to the steps for Facebook. Follow other Twitter users, attract your own followers and use Twitter to promote your content. With a smaller user base, it’s easier to target active Twitter users by geography to follow to get the process started.
How to use Foursquare
Claiming 50 million U.S. users, Foursquare isn’t used as a communications channel the way Facebook and Twitter are. It’s strength lies in being the first to build its platform on geo-awareness, highlighting businesses that are geographically closest to its user.
The best way to use Foursqaure is to claim and optimize your business listing, including some kind of “offer” for Foursquare users.
Other Social Media Sites to Consider or Keep An Eye On
Not tracked in the Online Snapshot report, but actively growing users and something to start considering or keep an eye on are some of these social media sites:
Linkedin: The 3rd largest social network and the Facebook for Work, now owned by Microsoft.
Pinterest: Quickly becoming the online destination for images (pins) and pitching itself as the online source for “discovery”.
Instagram: Owned by Facebook as a response to Pinterest.
Snapchat: Closed peer network that is the hottest social media site for 18-34 years olds. Closed networks, including Line, Wickr and others are tough for businesses not targeting a younger demographic that’s decided it doesn’t want a public face, i.e. closed.
