“Stop waiting for interactions, become the initiator!”
Small business owners know the importance of social media. You’ve attended seminars, read numerous articles and have been approached by multiple professionals convincing you to get on board. Whether you like it or not, you’re signing up and attempting to follow the rules as passed down by social media gurus everywhere.
You take technical lessons on how to use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to feel more comfortable with their platforms. You research similar businesses to see what your competition is posting online. You do everything in your power to understand what all the fuss is about, but in the end, you realize you’ve really only found a new outlet to waste a ton of time without fully understanding the benefits and without having a sound and logical strategy to help you use these new tools.
Before you give up completely and leave all your new social media pages stagnant or hire a company to push post after post out to the world, take a new logical and strategic approach to your efforts.
You already know the importance and benefits of networking, word-of-mouth advertising, and forming relationships with other local businesses. It’s time to apply these tried and true marketing strategies to your own social media.
The big three, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, all have systems in place to notify page administrators when someone follows, likes, comments, and shares information. Usually, you sit back and wait for a user to interact with you via one of these methods. You rely on this to measure the success of your efforts. Most people fail to see that these are not measurement tools but rather communication, networking and relationship building tools.
Stop waiting for interactions, become the initiator!
Follow other businesses, share their information, support their efforts, and spread the word both personally and through your business. Take it a step further and connect with your community via non-profit, charity and community pages. You will quickly find that as you support others, they will support you online too.
Our clients that have embraced this strategy, and I hate to call it a strategy as it’s truly just being a good locally involved business, continually come back to us with testimonials of success. They describe how rewarding it is to form relationships with other local businesses that they have never met face-to-face. They describe the great feeling when they can actually see word-of-mouth advertising as other local businesses suggest their service offerings. And, they describe how fulfilling it is to now feel part of an online community.
You know how to network, it’s probably the foundation of your business’ marketing success; start embracing it online and your social media efforts will begin to feel worthwhile.
Nicole French is a Marketing Consultant focused on helping small businesses succeed online.
Collaborative Haus Marketing is a full-service marketing company in Ontario serving Midland, Penetanguishene, Barrie, Orillia, Parry Sound, Toronto, and surrounding areas. We’re a group of committed, honest, creative and knowledgeable professionals determined to build solutions that help your business succeed. We believe small, medium and big businesses deserve the same caliber of professionalism, quality of service and exceptional results.
Contact us today! Our first meeting is always free!
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