Whatever service your business offers, social networking is growing so big that it’s likely to contain your customers – if you aren’t using it, you should be!
First, work out your target audience group. This should be easy to do, using your business plan and looking at who frequently purchases your products, but needs to be kept up to date in order to be useful.
Next, set up a Facebook page, and a Twitter account. It is is better to do this at the same time, to give you better chances of getting both names. Using your business name, or very similar, is a good idea, to allow your customers to find you easier. If you use a different name, try to keep it consistant across your social networking.
Link your social networking accounts on your homepage. Twitter provide a button which you can use to link to your twitter account on your website, making this very easy.
Offer competitions to encourage people to find and ‘like’ your page, or ‘follow’ you. Commonly, companies give something away (a small product, or service) once they reach 100 followers, 500 followers…this encourages people to join. Once they have joined, they will see posts you make on their social networking feed.
Post regular updates. Be careful not to mix personal and business posts, and do not post anything controversial – keep it to topical conversations, and making updates about your products – you could post pictures of the production process, or ask customers about colors and patterns.
When your customers log on, your posts will be shown, reminded them of your business and ensuring they will remember you – this is a very effective marketing campaign which can really make a difference to your business! One final tip – schedule the time you spend on this each day, to ensure you don’t ‘lose’ too much time.
