Social Networking is very much a buzzword at the moment
with
many companies thinking that they must use Facebook or
Twitter for marketing but when it comes down to it they
really don't know how to start.
In this Section of our site we will help you decide what
avenue of internet social networking suits your business
and how to get started.
There are many sites
out there that are classed as social networking site and
with each targeted at a more specific audience. Some are
general like
Twitter and
Facebook and some are aimed more towards business
like
LinkedIn and
IGOPeople.
Firstly Determine your
target audience and what you have to say.
Most marketing people are only used to
"Shouting" at customers that is to say its a one way
conversation where there is no feedback from the target.
In social networking the main difference is that you are
having conversations with the target audience there is
what is termed a " Full Duplex conversation" or in plain
English you have to talk and listen to what you are told
back. Normally the people in charge of talking are in
the marketing department and the people in charge of
listening to the responses are in the service or sales
department and often they don't talk as much as they
should! So if thinking of twitter then make sure that
who ever is doing the tweeting can handle both sides of
the conversation.
This System is perfect for getting
feedback from your clients on existing products or
recommendations for new ones it is used very well by
many local small businesses to keep things going between
the supplier and current or potential customer when not
meeting them face to face.
Marketing on Twitter
Here are a few examples -
Limerick County Enterprise Board are
now on most of the social sites and are using twitter to
inform their clients of current events and training etc.
-
www.twitter.com/lcoeb
The Limerick Leader - publishes
regular headline updates on twitter with links to the
online version of the paper keeping people informed of
breaking news. -
www.twitter.com/Limerick_Leader
This is a technique also used by RTE -
www.twitter.com/RTE
Wild Orchard make smoothes and drinks
and have an excellent online flow on their twitter page
and they regularly update followers with new product
ideas and hints
www.twitter.com/Wildorchard
We are giving these as an example of
how twitter can work for you. The main thing is that
what you say in twitter shows up on every followers feed
page so if you keep just pushing out marketing bumf then
you will find your follower numbers dropping off quickly
as people get tired of " our products are the best "
Tweets.
Think of Twitter as text messages to your friends, keep
them interesting and funny if suitable for your business
answer peoples questions and use the @person option to
talk directly to someone do this and people will me more
likely to want to find out more about you and your
company.
To summarise then twitter is more for
conversations than directly marketing your products. Get
people interested and they will visit your web page
Facebook page or blog to find out more it is a good
source for business leads as you talk to the person and
they can determine is based on your tweet history if you
are a company or individual they are interested in doing
business with again a reminder - Keep if informal but
polite!
Don't start on twitter unless you or others within the
organisation will be making regular updates. There is
software available for most phones to allow you to Tweet
from them making the process easier.
There is nothing worse than a ghost
Tweet - A company who set up a twitter account but have
not updated it in months and months - This is a bad
reflection on the company.
Marketing on Facebook
Facebook is quickly becoming home to more and more
brands and companies. While there are some restrictions
on how you can use Facebook it is expected that most of
these restrictions will shortly be removed and it will
allow fill access to commercial enterprises to all of
the options of Facebook.
Facebook is more of an opportunity to get your brand
out there and does not require the constant updating
that Twitter needs but still you must respond to the
posts on your wall from "fans" to ensure that the people
interacting with you online feel that you are listening
to what they have to say.
The importance of Branding
All of the online sites allow varying levels of
branding which should be used to differentiate you site
from all the others this can be achieved with wall
papers graphics and logos. We offer a design service to
ensure that your corporate image is shown to its best
online. For examples see -
LCOEB Blog and
LCOEB on Twitter
Networking online with LinkedIn and IGOPeople
These services allow you to build up a network of
customers and related business allowing you to recommend
and be recommended by your customers to new potential
clients. Again LCOEB are leading the way by linking and
encouraging small business to link to others online.
Visit our
SEO training pages for more information on Courses
we run teaching the points mentioned above. |
