Grow Your Business Using Social Media

By Scott Martin

Social Media has revolutionized how our culture interacts.  Some of those changes present opportunities for businesses to increase their online visibility, engage with customers and even drive new business.

To be really effective at using Social Media for your business, you should focus on the following priorities:

1) Establish Your Presence – There are numerous Social Media sites to choose from.  Most businesses should focus their efforts on Facebook, Twitter & Google+ as the primary places to start.  Each of these are highly relevant to both Google’s search algorithm (a key element of making sure you business is highly visible) and they have highly engaged and very large sets of users.   The key is to set all of these up in a way that comprehensively showcases the products and services offered.  It is not enough to just setup a Plumbing Contractor profile.  You must also explain all the services you offer and do so in a way that uses the keywords that would be used by a prospective new customer.  So a plumber would obviously highlight their plumbing services capabilities, but would also discuss hot water heaters, sewer line inspection and clean-out, faucets & fixtures, septic tank installation and pumping as well as Emergency Services offered (to name a few).

2) Build an Audience – Now that your presence is established, you must focus on getting as many of that sites users as possible to connect to your business.  On Facebook, this is a “Like”, on Twitter it is a “Follower” and on Google+ it is people connected in your “Circles”.  Each of these connections is essentially and “opt-in” for your content and marketing.  There are a variety of ways to build an audience, but the most crucial is for you to generate engaging and useful content that makes people want to connect with you.  Generating content that is helpful, useful and attractive or magnetic is the key.  You have to resist the temptation to sell… no one uses social media to be sold to, so you have to be strategic about your content.  Generating content that explains the benefits of tankless hot water heaters might be considered helpful and educational.  Generating a tweet that reminds followers it is time to change the filters in your Air Conditioning units and simultaneously offering a $25 coupon for those very same services would likely be considering informative and special (due to the coupon).

3) Create Marketing Campaigns – Now that you have a base of connections, start to think through specific marketing campaign goals.  Initially, for example, one of your campaigns could be focused on getting more followers on Twitter, while later it could be to drive new business sales through your Twitter audience.  So, as you start to think through campaigns, get creative.  If you want users to do something for you (like share your post with their friends, family and connections (thereby extending its’ reach), entice them to do so by offering something.  You can get even more leverage from your offerings by making them bigger, but only winnable via a lottery or drawing.  The sky is the limit with your campaigns.  Get creative and think like a marketer.

So while Social Media presents a very affordable marketing platform for businesses, you cannot avoid putting some effort into them.  There is nothing cruise control about this platform.  You must work it to make sure you have an ever-growing audience and your campaigns are accomplishing your sales & marketing goals.