You don’t need to be a tech savvy to realize the business potential of social networks, even from a small business’ perspective. Social networking can, indeed, boost your coverage, give you access to more potential clients, better communication with the existing ones, and not to mention the fact that it boosts your SEO (which translates into even more coverage).
The benefits don’t stop there – using social networks to boost your business in a quite inexpensive manner as compared to many other methods, making it perfect for a small business with limited resources.
Furthermore, it can help you adjust better to your clients expectations and give people a reason to say something positive about you to their friends. Take all of this together and you can easily realize why using social networks can yield spectacular results. However, in order to harvest the fruits of your labor, you must first plant the seeds correctly, which is why I’m here – to tell you how to do it.
Step 1: Set up the profile
The first step is, of course, setting up the profile. This will be the way people will see you in the social media sectors of cyberspace. You want everything to be well-said and you definitely don’t want to lie because misinformation is one of the things people on the Internet hate a lot. What they love, however, is exposing lies, which means that if your information doesn’t correspond to reality, everybody will know that in the matter of minutes, which will be a devastating start ruining the whole endeavor. Remember, this is the Internet – lying on TV is one thing, but here you have a direct interaction with people, where they can actually expose you.
Apart from truth in advertising, provide interesting and relevant information about your company. Also, if you have several offices/ bases of operation, create a separate profile for each one. This is a good idea because you want to provide the most relevant information to people, and not be considered a spammer.
Step 2: Find the right administrator
You have a lot of creative freedom here. You can deal with this personally, or if you don’t want to or have the time, you can pay someone to do it for you. You have to be sure that the person will follow your rules, will comply to company policies, will know the company and its products and will be familiar with the sort of customers he or she will be communicating with. You want a friendly person who will be able to go through all comments and gather relevant information, defend the company if needs be, reply to personal messages, and post interesting relevant information. This is crucial for the success of the operation.
Step 3: Create a large contact base
You want your message to reach as many people as possible, which is why it’s crucial to accumulate a significant contact base, whether it’s friends, followers, or whatever. This is the job of the administrator and the first time you will actually use the tools provided by social networks. Most SN today give you the option to contact people from your region, which will easily help you create your contact base within a few weeks. Most people accept all sorts of invites, so it’s OK that they don’t know you. This gives you the opportunity to find potential clients.
Step 4: Information and Feedback
Now the job of the administrator is getting tricky. He has to provide all the information relevant at the moment for the company, whether it is for new services, sales, changes or something of the sort. The posts have to be well-written and error-free. Furthermore, the comments have to be read as sometimes they might give you useful insights into making the company or services better according to customers’ feedback. This will be something your clients will deeply appreciate and you can tell them about it using your social media profile.
Step 5: Provide links to the company site
The admin will have to provide links to the new blog posts or content on the company site. This will not only boost your SEO, but also give more coverage to your site and blog, essentially meaning your message will reach more people.
Those are the basics. If you manage to execute those 5 steps properly, you will be well on your way to having a more successful business.
Good luck on your endeavor!
