Social media is not a magic bullet. It is not an instant brand builder that will flood your switchboard with customers snatching your hand off for your goods and services. Like everything, sales take time. If you think social media will turn around your failing business in an instant then stop using it.
Like all advertising, it takes time… to build relationships between you and your potential customer. They need to trust you or someone advocating what you do. They may not even feel ready for your product right this minute… only 3% are potentially in the market now… but… they could be interested in the future. If you want sales tomorrow you should have started the process some considerable time ago to get yourself in the right place at the right time.
But it is not a platform for you to pump out every product your businesses offers and expect customers to magically appear. Constantly selling on-line is the quickest way to turn off those around you and will result in few, if any, sales…
Social media helps you do that but you must be using it little and often. Posting updates, publicly helping people, sharing content from your interest pool and even in your business world and keep yourself in the minds of those around you will all help.
Now you may strike gold and your blog is picked up and turns very quickly in to work… if it is written well and ranks in Google there is no reason you will not be found for your area of expertise and social media platforms can certainly help you get your business blog up there. But more likley you will need to spend time connecting with people who will become great business builders for you first.
Start connecting with customers you already have as they are much more likely to share their experiences with their peers and give your business a positive boost on-line. We are much more likely to believe what others say than what a company shouts. Ask for testimonials on LinkedIn and use them in other places such as your facebook fanpage or on your website and blog.
Use something like commun.it to see which of your connections are the most chatty on twitter and make sure you keep in touch with them. You need all the friends you can get on social media to share your content and to tell others what they think about your business offerings. This is a nifty social media tool that shows you interactions and your top sharers. There is a free and a premium version (but even that is only $5 a month).
You also need to allocate time, just because most social media is completely free time isn’t and you do need to allocate time to update your social media platforms or don’t bother signing up. There is nothing worse than a completely empty facebook fanpage or a twitter stream that was last updated 6 months ago. You customers may think you business is no longer trading and you may as well have if you are not foremost in their mind for what you do.
A simple social media strategy and some automation tricks will help you get something out all of the time, even when you are busy and even going on holiday. Blogs can be scheduled, as can tweets, linkedin and facebook posts, however you will need to interact with people you join in so make sure you can track what is happening.
If you need a hand get in touch, we have a free 20 minute consultation which could help your business get something special using social media for business.
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