You didn’t achieve business success by frittering away your time chatting on Facebook or swapping videos on You Tube. At best, you may think, these sites and features are harmless diversions for teens, bored housewives and other people with a lot of extra time on their hands.
But you can’t escape it: You can’t even grab a burger without seeing a Facebook logo on the menu, or stamped onto the back of a delivery truck. You feel pressure to join in. But honestly, you really see it as just another in the endless parade of feel-good marketing schemes. Maybe you’ve even gone so far as to create a Facebook page, just to keep up appearances. But you don’t spend time or effort on it, because it’s not part of your real, hard-nosed business world.
But in fact, social media has become a pervasive and revolutionary fact of life, changing the interactions and communications between customers and businesses and creating a huge impact in consumer decision-making. Businesses ignore or downplay social media at their peril.
We’ll give you some solid business reasons for an aggressive social media strategy in a bit, but first, let’s make sure we know the definition of social media.
So what is Social Media?
The original Web was mostly about one-way communication. A business site was similar to a Yellow Pages ad – you controlled the message and the site delivered it. Along came the next generation, which picked up the sexy name Web 2.0. This web was, and is, two-way communication, with the audience grabbing the reins of control, using an array of tools that allow them to comment, share, contribute and deliver their own opinions, information, creative efforts and multimedia in an exploding number of ways.
The internet-based tools that allow them to do this are called “Social Media.” They range from networks of friends, family, colleagues and people with similar specialized interests, to forums, chat rooms, review sites, photo and video sharing sites, newsletters, news feeds, blogs and more. They include well-known services such as Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, My Space, YouTube and Digg, and review sites such as Yelp, Yahoo Local, City Search and Angie’s List, to name only a handful. And as much as the tools, this social media environment is about a mushrooming world view and social dynamic that is having an impact on everything from sharing recipes and shopping recommendations to revolutions, elections and social movements.
Get social or get left behind!
When it comes to your business, there’s only one thing you need to take away from this: You no longer have control of what people are saying about you. You can ignore it, but you can’t opt your business out of the conversation. You can’t control your business message. As we describe in our Reputation Management Services page, your only options are to let others talk about you behind your back . . . or join the conversation.
The gold standard of this new social media world isn’t having a Facebook page; it’s about prominently participating in the conversation and being approachable and transparent. And while an active Facebook strategy is great, it’s only a piece of the picture.
What about those hard-nosed business reasons?
Here are two: Search Engine Rank and Reputation. Both affect your bottom line, because your search engine rank has a great effect on whether a searcher will click on your site. And bad reviews can send potential customers scattering.
To help your search ranking – Overwhelmingly, consumers turn to the internet first as they make shopping decisions or choose service providers. And stark statistics show that the first few listings in a search results page get almost all of the clicks. You already understand the value of search-engine optimization (SEO), and may even employ a consultant to tweak your site. But some of the most powerful weapons in the search-ranking toolbox involve social media, which can boost your business in a variety of ways. Facebook and Twitter, in fact, are now part of Google’s search-ranking formula. And that’s just the start. If the competition is using the entire social media arsenal to boost its search rankings, and you’re sitting on your hands, you’re surrendering turf.
To guard your online reputation – Many business owners are stunned the first time they find a scathing review or poor rating posted prominently. And a significant percentage of potential customers are reading those reviews or other online conversations about businesses, products and services. You can’t just ignore this. You need to represent your business, answer questions, establish an ongoing relationship with customers and potential customers, and use all the tools possible to communicate with the market. A good social media campaign can actually help insulate you from future problems, as well as provide damage control for existing problems.
But I don’t have a clue where to start. And I’m not sure my staff and I have time for it.
These are valid points, and that’s where we come it. Here’s what we can do for you:
Do an Inventory – First we review your existing social media activity and evaluate its effectiveness. What, exactly is your Facebook page doing for you? How are newsletters and other on- and off-site features working. Do you have a real strategy, or are you just dabbling?
Map out a Social Strategy – Based on your business and your social media profile, we help develop a strategy that will best use your resources for maximum results. We focus on ways to use social media to boost your SEO, protect your reputation and provide growing communication and interaction with your customers and potential customers.
Build your Network – Based on the inventory and strategy, we set up the social media tools best suited to your situation. We also keep constantly updated in the latest tools and technologies – such as Facebook’s latest company pages and its expected new versions, or the upcoming Google+ profiles. We also implement technology to help make social media maintenance more efficient and cost-effective
Train you & your Staff – Just because your office manager has a Facebook page doesn’t mean he can effectively use social media tools to enhance your business. Along with developing a strategy, we help you create a plan for staff responsibilities for social media, and train staffers how to maintain a vibrant social profile.
Maintain your Network – If you get the importance of social media to your company success, but still don’t feel you have the internal resources to launch and maintain the campaign, we also provide services from targeted blogging to monitoring and keeping up your activity streams on various social media, including Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Act now and get social media evaluation FREE
For a limited time, we are offering to do the initial social profile evaluation of your site free.