Loading...With hundreds of millions of Internet users registered on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, businesses are continuously looking for new methods to tap into this vast audience. By growing your social media presence, your business could gain new customers and develop relationships with existing ones. Disregarding social media is now considered a mistake in the business world – you must seize the opportunity and take your brand towards a successful 2012. Here are eight tips to help your business climb the social media ladder.
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1. Invest Some Time
One of the best things that you can do for improving your status in the social media world is to invest your time. You have to be willing to get involved if you want to get any returns. Spend time finding friends or followers. Spend some time responding to messages or commenting on other people’s posts. Your customers will like the fact that you are active in the social networking community.
2. Provide Help
Consider providing help to your customers or prospective customers through social networking sites. If you have some kind of expertise or knowledge, do not hesitate to share it freely on the social networking sites. This can have a positive impact on your business as it portrays you as a company that is willing to lend a helping hand to others.
3. Use Proper Etiquette
If you want to be taken seriously in the social networking world, you have to use proper etiquette. For example, when using Twitter, many users utilize hash tags to put emphasis on certain aspects of their tweets. This is a common practice and you should consider doing it if you plan on having a presence on social media sites.
4. Previews!
Offering a preview of upcoming products or services can get customer interest up; the hype for a new product is a powerful tool. For example, if you are developing a new product that others are excited about, uploading a picture of a prototype can help generate some buzz about what you have to offer. You obviously do not need to give away too much information about the potential product, but some kind of sneak peak can go a long way towards helping your company.
5. Integrate Social Networking into your Website
If your business has a website, you may want to integrate some social networking features into it. For example, if you have a blog or continuously put up new content on your site, you could put a Facebook “Like” button on the page. This way, when someone reads content on your site that they like, they can simply “Like” the page to share it with their friends. This puts your content in front of new people and potentially brings you more customers.
6. Stay Positive
In the social networking world, it is easy to get caught up in wars of words or make negative statements. If you want to emit a positive image to your consumers, you have to remain positive at all times when using social networking sites. Avoid the temptation to talk negatively about competitors or others in your industry. You never know how others will take your comments, even if they are meant in jest.
7. Provide Incentives
Social media sites are a good place to provide customer incentives on a regular basis. For instance, you may send out a link to a coupon or a promotion on Twitter to all of your followers. This way, you can reward your loyal customers and followers. This will encourage others to follow you, which will increase your influence and reach even further.
8. Avoid Spamming or Constant Promotion
While social media networks can be good places to promote your brand, you don’t want to go overboard. Most people don’t like seeing advertisements or product endorsements in every single post. If you want to remain relevant on social media networks, you have to use promotion with caution. Otherwise, people will start to tune you out or even stop following you because of it. You must have a delicate balance of content and promotion when using social media sites.