Top tips on Social Media with Jayne Reid

Q1. Why does my business need social media? 

• Brings your business to life, makes it current and topical
• Chattier, more informal style
• Gives your business personality (websites are sooooo dry!)
• 2-way communication with clients so great new way for building new relationships and strengthening existing ones
• Great for getting immediate feedback, testimonials and third party endorsement
• Allows you to portray your expertise in a useful and relevant way

Q2. Which social media platform should I be on?

• Where your targets are is the simple answer – you need absolute clarity on who are your target markets and sectors, then you research if they are    on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Business Facebook. If they are, then you should be too!
• LinkedIn is the main B2B platform and rich in numbers in IT, Financial Services, Manufacturing and HE sectors, so if these are on your hit-list then LinkedIn is good for your strategy. Its style is more formal and business orientated.
• Twitter had its origins in the celebrity culture but is now being widely used by business – both B2B and B2C – its style is chatty, insightful and polite.
• Business Facebook is the trickiest to set up but is very powerful due to its vast numbers of users. Ideal for B2C companies but coming more and more into the B2B landscape- its style is very chatty, sharing information and viral in nature.

Q3. What do I say? 

• Divide content into information about your company (broadcasting), source great information your clients will want to hear e.g. tips on….., articles on….. and then finally try to engage with your information 
• Asking   questions is a great way to create a 2-way dialogue
• Research content sources: ask your clients what interests them – marketing tips, funding sources, business issues, finance issues etc and then source sites with great articles/blogs/forums etc that you can pass on – become a source of knowledge and interest – do not bore them to death with company information!

Q4.How much time should I spend on social media?

• Spend at least 2 hours getting your profiles looking like your shop window to the world – LinkedIn needs at least 80% completeness rating and ideally should be 100%. Spend time on your Twitter bio-line as it follows you everywhere, and choose imagery and colours to appeal to your targets – not your personal preferences.
• LinkedIn – 30mins a week and post at least once a week onto your wall to your contacts, and engage in your chosen groups monthly.
  Twitter – 6 tweets a day, 2 broadcast, 2 information sources, 2 engagement and if you use management tools such as Tweetdeck or Hootsuite this should only take 10-15 minutes a day. Spend some of this time building your follows, answering messages, re-tweeting etc to encourage engagement.
• Business Facebook – 6 posts a day – use the same content as Twitter and spend time on your key targets ‘liking’ and ‘commenting’ on their walls so you are visible to them as well.

Q5.How does social media fit our corporate strategy?

• Raises brand awareness
• Becoming an expert
• Increase traffic to my website
• Increase Google ranking (Social noise needed)
• Generate ideas from customers
• Strengthen relationships
• Improve customer service
• Generate new leads and sales – eventually