Self-employed and home-based business owners continue to debate the value of social media. While there are certainly benefits to listing your business on social media, it’s just as important to avoid the pitfalls that waste your time.
A strong trading platform ensures that all facets of your trading enterprise are efficient and effective. Social media scheduling is a valuable aspect of building your business platform. What is a platform? Imagine building a stage for an outdoor band in the middle of an empty field – a lot of thought and planning goes into designing the right stage. How much weight will it hold and how big will it be? Then there’s the cost of supplies, services, and skills you may need to purchase or outsource. When you can finally stand on that stage, you try it out and find that it’s solid: it doesn’t budge under you and you don’t have to go back and fix mistakes. Its platform is everything that makes it work. Now you can advance to the next level of your business plan.
There are many dangers that can lurk unseen when it comes to using social media and we cover many of them in Purple Snowflake Marketing. For example: the mistake of getting buried in entertaining and educational posts and videos. Blurring the lines between personal entertainment and business activities can waste a lot of valuable time.
Business owners need to take a good look at who the potential customer is. Having this information on hand will help you decide on the visual design, color, images, social media you might use, and the actual content. It is best to determine, early on, what your purpose is in using any particular social media outlet. You can use Facebook differently than Instagram, for example.
When signing up for an account on any social media, pay attention to the profile where you can post additional images, color scheme, or your logo. Review your profiles at least once a year. You want the information to be up-to-date, easy to find, attractive to customers, and reflect your purpose for being there. You also want to avoid appearing outdated, outdated, or no longer in business.
Personal social networks should be viewed separately. During business hours, it’s vital that you don’t even look at their personal pages or respond to messages from them. It’s the same as talking on the phone with your girlfriend all day at work – don’t do it! Staff should be trained with this in mind, and if they do post for the company, it should be through business accounts, not their personal accounts.
Avoid mixing the personal with the business at any level, unless the topic concerns the company, its politics, mission, or personnel. Commercial media should not feature your personal activities, personal opinions, political views, cute and silly videos, or vacation photos of you, your children, or your family. Remember that the purpose of the social media aspects of the trading platform is to attract and engage with customers and trading networks.
That being said, the people who have connected with you on social media are there because they enjoy reading your posts and watching helpful videos. They certainly don’t want to see time-wasting fluff, inappropriate content, or being “sold” all the time. It is very important to find a good balance as to where and when to sell to the audience.
Make sure your (and your employee’s) personal online presence isn’t offensive to customers either. If your staff shows up on your website and someone checks them out only to find that your Facebook page reveals disturbing images, it can (and will) hurt your business.
People also want to be heard, so invite them to share their thoughts and suggestions on your posts or to contact you via private message. Your response to their comments gives them a sense of being respected, recognized, and appreciated.
Another advantage of using social media is that every time your site is listed, it becomes a backlink. Every time someone sees your post and follows the backlink, your site gains search engine rankings. So when used sensibly, this tool can definitely be your friend and make your marketing efforts a great help.