Member Article

Can you really make the most out of social if you’re only just starting up?

Can you really make the most out of social if you’re only just starting up?

Social media and it’s applications for business can seem fairly confusing at first glance. To many entrepreneurs a small business has far more concerning issues to face than whether to engage with social media. This however is completely wrong! Everyone defaults to Googling a company or its offerings to fulfil a variety of different types of research before purchasing, now more than ever you need to ensure that you account for yourself properly across your whole digital footprint. This is where social media as an important part of the puzzle comes to the fore.

The 5 steps you need for social success as a start-up

Step 1:

It’s fairly simple but you need to collect together the following pieces of information ready to populate your pages:

• A quick business description, detailing who you are, what you stand for and what you do.
• Details of where and how you can be contacted.
• Some imagery that reflects your offering and your brand.
  • Your audience need to know who you are and associate
• And if you’re feeling really inventive some sort of extra information that your end user will be interested in.
  • This could be case studies, specific photos, videos or any content that will engage and capture the interest of your targets.

Step 2:

Go out and create your company pages. This isn’t tough and can be done simply by searching for “create a business page [insert chosen social media network here]”. The first three I would recommend would be Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. However as your organisation evolves you may wish to consider other networks such as Google+, Instagram and Youtube. You should consider each network carefully as they all differ slightly and some will lend themselves more naturally to your type of business than others.

Step 3:

Next you need to input the information and details you gathered from step one into your pages. Populate as many of the sections as you possibly can. If your audience are willing to do research on you, you’d better have provided them with enough information to answer their questions and prove your credibility. Words of warning though at this point, make sure that all of your information is clear. Don’t overload your audience with heavy levels of detail unless completely necessary.

Step 4:

Once you’ve created the pages and populated them with content you need to publish the pages and send them out into the big wide world. This doesn’t mean pressing the button and forgetting about them, but promoting their use with engaging content, offers and interacting with your audience. If you pre-populate your pages with engaging content then you will have a ready source of leads once your followership grows.

Step 5:

Now it’s time to find yourself an audience, the simplest way is to engage with your customers and prospects, inviting them to connect with you via your social media pages. You can undertake specific followership drives, such as offering free items or incentives exclusively to followers who share and engage with your content. Reward those who are loyal, be funny, helpful – all the things you would do normally in your business generating activities, just replicate it via social, it’s simple!

You don’t need to be completely tech savvy, or a genius to perform these steps, but if you undertake them properly your business will reap the rewards for years to come. If you’re ready to get going, our How To Guide for Creating Business Pages on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ is a great place to start.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Alex Sorisi .