Social Media Is NOT About Promoting Your Business
Using Social Media for Business – Understanding the Basics
Social media is the big thing for marketing small businesses. Since everyone uses
Facebook to talk to their friends and family or Twitter to watch #TV with, it’s a natural
progression to try to use it to grow your business.
After all you are already comfortable with the platform, and as a small business owner
you promote your business almost naturally.
But there’s a disconnect between knowing how to use social media websites for
personal use and for business.
Sites like Facebook and Twitter seem to be different when you want to market your
company, and you might not be completely sure of the business etiquette, the
unspoken rules, or, — more importantly– the tips and tricks that make it work.
This guide is an introduction to understanding how social media can help small
businesses (even 1 man shows) grow their business.
Social Media Is NOT About Promoting Your Business
Now wait a minute, didn’t I just say we’re going to help you get started with using social media to promote your business? Yes I did, and we will, but before we go crazy with that, you should know that the most successful companies using social media for business only promote themselves about 20% of the time.
20% (or less) of all of the post, tweets, updates they make on the platforms we discussed can be, or better yet, are acceptable to be about the company itself.
So you have a fanpage and you want to share a link to your business sale, what does this mean? It means you should have at least 8 other posts on your fanpage that make it a place fans want to be a part of.
Inbound Marketing
You see, social media is part of a movement called inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is basically marketing to people who want to hear from you.
It contrasts traditional/interruption marketing in that people actually WANT to hear the marketing message, but, and this is a huge BUT, you have to make it worth their while.
How do you do that?
You remember that them liking you is something they can take away at any time, and that you have to keep them happy, entertained even, educated about the industry, and generally glad to see your name when it pops up.
This is quite a different way to look at marketing, but there are a lot of benefits to it. The biggest being that the average company spends 62% less on each lead (according to a study by Hubspot- the company who coined the term inbound marketing).
Now, back to the 20%, basically you are allowed to market to your fans, as long as you provide them with entertainment, education, and engagement the rest of the time. You have to earn the right to promote your company to them, even though they’ve already liked your page.
To be honest this isn’t a rule you HAVE to follow, it is however the generally accepted rule and the one that has shown to be the most successful for businesses.
You are absolutely welcome to bombard your followers with link after link of information, but you’ll lose them as quickly as you gain them, or even worst- they’ll hide your messages becoming dead fans that do nothing but weigh down the success of your fanpage.
Social Media Builds Relationships, Trust, Loyalty & Sales
As you give your followers what they want, they come to like, trust, respect, and in time, buy from you. This is a great process because it allows you to build relationships between yourself and the fans you have. You help each other out, and share with others how useful each of you are.
A trusting relationship with a person who works for, or represents, your company helps customers feel comfortable with making a purchase. Your company wants to be the one they ultimately come to for your industry.
How Does Your Business Benefit From Using Social Media?
Exposure is the biggest benefit of using social media. In most cases someone has to hear about your business at least 7 times to consider trying it out, for FREE things.
Social proof– Once people hear about your business, they want to see what others thing about, they’ll ask on Facebook, Twitter and Yelp. By being active on those sites you show that you have followers and people who believe in your business, or have used your services, etc. They can see all of this.
Website visitors– When you have a following in social media, you can share links to your website, and get them to visit.
Sales– It takes visitors to make sales. The more people who come to your website, the more likely you are to make a sale.
Customer Service– Since people are so busy, but on social media anyway, they will click through your links and ask their questions right in public. The benefit is, you are less likely to ignore them, they are more likely to get a response they want, and you won’t have to continuously answer this question because everyone can see it.
Community– Because there are already people in your area that are active on social media and have their own large communities, you can benefit. All you have to do is be active there as well, they will learn who you are, what you have to offer and become fans of your business.
Learn How To Use Social Media for Your Business
As you know our consultants at Social Media Fuze are helping small business owners like you learn how to use social media for their business. Here’s why we think you will benefit:
No One Is You– You have the most passion and excitement about your business, if you can learn how to share this with others, social media will be more beneficial.
You’ll Be In Control– You can’t beat that feeling of knowing what is going on, and what results you should be able to get. With my course you’ll be in control of your social media, or at the very least you’ll know what to expect.
