Social Media ‘Tips and Tools’ To Help Your Business Grow

Whilst more and more businesses are using social media, it may be less clear as to whether the money and time spent is worth it or not. MF Communication attended an excellent seminar recently hosted by Invest NI's eBusiness Advisor, Nick Martin. We'd like to share some of the useful tips and tools we gained from that event.

Rather than simply jumping on the bandwagon of social media, what was clear is that the first and most important things are be sure what your business wants to achieve; how social media will help with that, if at all, and how success will be measured. In an ever-expanding social media landscape, knowing how to keep up with technology and process development is pivotal to the success of a social media strategy. The seminar demonstrated how the web is changing and becoming more and more people-centric as users dedicate more time interacting with others online rather than consuming information on websites. Here are some tips for businesses wanting to interact on the most popular interactive web platforms:

Facebook

• A platform to engage with people who like your brand, want to share opinions, participate in competitions etc.[1]
• A business profile displays information about your organisation, as well as core applications including Photos, Events, Videos, Groups, and Pages – that let people connect and share in rich and engaging ways.[2]
• To improve ‘likes’ on your business page, content 'for fans only' can be applied, e.g. a competition for those who like your page and become a fan can enter.[3]
• Worthwhile for brand exposure, particularly the ad platform. Nevertheless it is advisable not to over commercialise a business page[4]
• Make use of the free Facebook Insights to measure and evaluate the business page, by understanding and analyzing trends within user growth and demographics, consumption of content, and creation of content.[5]

Twitter

• Twitter can be used to quickly share information with people interested in products and services with a 140 character story, share photos, videos and links to other media sources, gather real-time market intelligence, and build relationships with customers, partners and influential people.[6] 
• Using the keyword search monitoring through programs such as Hootsuite, Twitjump or Radian 6 improves customer communication as your organisation can track what people are saying about the company and its competitors.[7] 
• Twitter can increase website traffic; but a balance is needed between promoting the brand too heavily, as a result turning off followers and not investing enough time, therefore receiving little attention.[8] 
• The value to websites’ search engine optimisation (SEO) is limited, however tweets can rank high in search results in terms of Twitter profile name and breaking news[9] 

LinkedIn

• The largest professional network on the Internet with more than 120 million members in over 200 countries and territories.[10] 
• Customer communication is not the primary focus however it is effective when your organisation answers industry related questions, establishing yourself as an expert in the field.[11] 
• Encouraging all of your employees to maintain a complete profile is advisable to strengthen your organisations’ reputation and fully demonstrate your employees’ professional skills.[12] 
• Unlikely to drive significant traffic to your corporate website, however ranked high in search engine optimisation terms as LinkedIn profiles are generally guaranteed to feature on the first page of search results.[13]

YouTube

• Businesses can created a customised YouTube channel to entertain or inform customers quickly about recent work activities, events, tutorials, client testimonials or announcements.[14]
• Primarily traffic will only go to the video however traffic to your corporate website can be increased by adding a hyperlink to the video content or description.[15]
• Videos are ranked high in search results therefore YouTube will improve your search engine optimisation.[16]
• Demographic information on viewers is available to establish what your target audience wants to see more of, thereby meeting your customer needs more efficiently.[17]

Groupon

• Groupon is a sales and marketing tool which features a daily deal on the best stuff to do, see, eat, and buy to 83,100,000 global subscribers in 43 countries, creating opportunities for brand exposure.[18]
• Ideal sales and marketing platform for various industries particularly the hotel and catering market.[19]
• Potential to improve your customer interaction and brand loyalty as customers find out about great new businesses, and businesses get more new customers than with any other form of advertising.[20]
• Subscribers can share the offers with everyone they know via other social media so the buzz can continue to attract new customers to your organisation for months following your feature.[21]

Issuu

• Issuu is the leading digital publishing platform delivering online reading experiences of magazines, catalogs, and newspapers.[22]
• Can convert large uploaded documents into various professional digital platforms, making the document easier to read and embed on other social networking sites.[23]
• Issuu can upload, share and host the publication with 33 million monthly readers or limit viewing to your clients only.[24]
• Analytic tool is available to measure how many readers your publication.[25]

Slideshare

• Slideshare uploads presentations to share with your private clients or the 50 million monthly visitors, improving brand exposure.[26]
• Adds a professional look to presentations rather than just opting for PowerPoint.[27]
• Also supports documents, PDFs, videos and webinars.[28]
• Businesses can embed the presentations on their corporate website or share it automatically on other social networking profiles.[29]

See further details here:

CMOcom-SocialMediaLandscape2011.pdf

 Sources: