Is Social Media right for my business?
Lots of clients contact us requesting help setting up or training them on using Social Media for their business. The first thing we ask is why?
Seems strange, right. The butcher doesn’t ask you why you want that side of roast lamb, the hairdresser doesn’t ask you why you want your hair done even the painter won’t ask why you want to redecorate, but maybe they should.
Maybe understanding why you want something and what you expect from it will give you a better plan and therefore a better outcome. When we ask 'Why?' a lot of clients respond with a blank look as if they hadn’t considered this before, sometimes it’s because all their friends or competitors are doing it or because it looks good on their business card or website or they want to brag about getting 100’s of fans. There is no right or wrong answer but there is a lot to consider before taking this leap into the unknown. Here are a few questions to ask yourself in order to plan effectively the best way forward:
Who is my target audience?
Think about this, do you sell pipe tobacco or granny slippers or are you a gadget shop with the latest in wearable tech. What age are your typical customers, are they tech savvy, will they know how to tag, tweet or check-in to your shiny new profile/page? More specifically which platforms if any do your customers use?
What am I selling?
Are you a florist specialising in wedding flowers? Great loads of very visual content there, and smiling faces on wedding album shots and happy customers. But what if you are a washing machine engineer how can you make that interesting or engaging? This is where you need to think outside the box, can you develop your brands personality, do you have a specialist subject? Maybe Social Media isn’t the right fit for you, but there are other ways to use digital marketing to tap into that massive audience to generate leads and drive traffic to your business or website.
Do I have the right resources?
Once you take the leap you will be amazed at how time consuming managing, monitoring and posting can be, all on top of running your day to day business. Launching yourself into Social Media is not the same as taking out an ad in local press – there will be an expectation to deliver regular content, otherwise why bother? This is a 2 way street so you will need time to monitor & respond to queries. Do you have tech savvy staff, someone that has a flair for social and is perhaps popular in their own circles?
Now you have given it some thought you are ready to go set up your page or profile, it’s easy you’ve already got a personal profile so how difficult could it be? Well there may be lots of resources to help get you up and running but this is just the beginning. Remember first impressions count. You need to start as you mean to continue.
Have you developed a Social Media Strategy?
Do you have a content calendar?
What resources can you use for sourcing or creating regular content?
How will you measure success?
What tools are available to make it easier.
Should you pay to play?
We’ll be covering these topics in future blogs so check back soon, but in the meantime, If you have questions on getting started or taking the next step drop us a line andrea@121social.net
Perhaps you’ve you got a small business already on social media, what lessons have you learned along the way. Have you started and hit a blank and need help refreshing your content or looking for ways to develop your fan base, we’d love to hear from you.
