Engaging in the new age of media to get your business out and noticed seems like an excellent idea that cannot really be missed. Being left behind in the advancement of business and technology could potentially cause you to lose sight of your customers, but, there are also elements of business which will not respond to this form of open publicity. Knowing whether to engage with the new marketing strategies is more difficult than realising your company needs a data centre to store all of the customer information. There is no absolute answer as to whether businesses should engage in social media, but this article will consider some of the aspects that make a difference.
1. Does it need to be private?
The first question to ask about your business is whether it needs to be private or not. Considering the social stigmas surrounding Viagra, for example, one would not expect people to engage in social promotions of this element of Pfizer’s business. It is possible, however, that people would be willing to promote Lipitor, which is used to lower blood cholesterol and made by the same company, once they have noticed real benefits from it.
If your customers would be happy to talk about it in public, then social channels will probably work for you. If they wouldn’t, consider following other digital marketing channels such as search engine optimisation to get the best results.
2. Can you do it yourself?
It is always possible to complete the task of social promotion yourself. Anyone is able to link a facebook and twitter account and express their views. There are two reasons, however, that this may not be the most sensible move for your business:
- Being social is time consuming. When promoting a business you need to make it feel humanised and this means you need to talk to people, all the time, every day. Imagine having to fulfil dinner engagements every lunchtime and dinnertime of everyday. At these engagements you would also have to talk to everyone in the room and not all of them will be nice to you.
- Social groups respond to honesty. You wouldn’t lie to your friends about why you did something, so how can you lie to your customers? One of the biggest elements of running social marketing campaigns is that dishonesty will be easily noticed and attacked. People do not like being lied to and they are more likely to make noise about it when online because it is easier than doing so face to face. One upset customer could potentially cost you a lot of business so you need to be open and up-front about your business and its processes.
It is always possible to manage this new stream of marketing yourself but it will be both challenging and time consuming. Allowing another company to complete it on your behalf will leave you with free time and allow you to gain all of the benefits.
3. Where to focus?
There are 4 basic areas that are suited best to businesses. There are always more avenues you could follow but focusing on the following will enable you to reach the highest potential group of customers. Check Social Media Sharing Tools
- Facebook – There are over 7.5 million Australians who have accounts on Facebook. This is a huge potential market that you can engage in so it’s a good place to start.
- Twitter – There are less users of Twitter but the fact that it links in to Facebook enables both sites to be managed fairly easily and simultaneously. Twitter is expanding rapidly around the areas of TV shows and live sports.
- Linkedin – This is a business focused form of social media but a presence will enable you to find employees, seek expertise and discuss ideas. This is a good way to be found by those specifically interested in the business side of your business.
- Google+ – This is the newer offering from Google. There is plenty of room to manoeuvre with this program so there is lots of potential for businesses to develop marketing strategies.
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Hi Sachin. Social media is a must and I agree as you said, any business not engaging with their customers in today’s age of digital media is missing out. Businesses just cant rely on old forms of snail mail contact anymore and get away with it. They need to be talking to their target demographic markets and including them in their business models. Sure social media has it’s ups and downs but the pros by far out way any negative cons.
Hi i totally agree with you Facebook have allot capability but twitter and Facebook both is nice twitter is working to business and Facebook having fun groups pages talk with Friends family and others but business focus from the social media presence enable find to employees that’s a great social media is the promote the sites we can said the both is nice not only Facebook. Thanks
I would be surprised if Facebook was still at the top considering how social media has changed just in the past few years. The internet is an ever changing machine that allows creative individuals to test the limits of what consumers are looking for and need. Outside influences are a big part of how online media and social networking is defined. If charlie sheen wasnt acting crazy right now no one on social media sites would be talking about him would they? With an ever changing economy who knows where the internet can go next. Will we even be able to afford computers at the current rate? Ok so that may be a stretch, but social media may even be a place where we do our banking and order food. I could see it happening and that would definately be a place people would hang out at right. People want to do everything from home these days so why have legs when you can just use your fingers to order a pizza, transfer money at your bank, and find a date for the night. Now thats a social networking site!
Hey Sachin.. I am new to your blog, and on the first day, i got my favorite topic to read about i.e. the Social Media. I strongly agree to your fact i.e. Being social is not just a matter of play but it needs lots of responsibilities to fulfill. We don’t lie to our friends so definitely we should not lie to our loyal customers. and the most important fact which people always forget is the feel of humanized work, and it gets lost because of over promotion with the same endorsements of the products/services over and over by the time. Instead there should be an interaction between the people and the company regarding the reviews and feedback(that’s the same point which I learned with more depth from your post). Thanks great Post Sachin!
Great post. I agree that social media is the way to go if you want to be close to your customers but it is also true that it is time consuming.
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I agree that social media can be time consuming, it is certainly something that I have found out while setting up my new business. It is difficult to find a balance between putting enough effort in to see rewards and, as I see it, putting in too much effort that you spend all day on social media!
It can be a risky process to rely on a third party to market your business online. Especially on social networks where things can get old and annoying very fast. I believe as long as you are hiring a third party to assist you that you must do your due diligence to get to know the company first and don’t hesitate to talk to others about who they are using and how it has benefitted them.
You have made several great points, Sachin. You have a great website, keep up the good work !
Thanks for your top 5 list – I totally agree with them all. There’s 2 no-brainers you’ve listed that are so often badly done! Make it easy for your audience to engage and blog (how hard do some of them make it, they want your life history when all you wanted to say was a couple of words!) and ‘close the deal’- ÁSK for feedback and comment! ’
Keep up the good work Sachin, look forward to more great tips!
Importance of social networking sites cannot be overstated. One has to engage with them to survive in today’s cut-throat competition.
Social media has gradually become a platform to share the content and advertise it. The content can be anything, from blog posts to a newly launched product. The social networks are the first choice today. So it would not be bad if i say that Ofcourse Social Media is a good way today to pupolarise, advertise and share our content.
No denying the fact that Social media is the best BEGINEER way to do something that we can call a start for websites , Social media marketing is something that everyone can easily achieve from a newbie to well settled and can really grow out with it !
Since the panda update has come in and google plus was launched the +1 has gained lots of importance and people who are able to get more number of +1 on their posts they do get advantaged on SERP as well..