Are You Socially Inadequate in Your Business?

Do you think Facebook is a joke and who wants to read about other peoples’ personal business anyway? Is Twitter for twits and LinkedIn just another way to hook you in? Are you ignoring these and other forms of social networking and social media because you think it is a waste of your time?

Then you my friend are socially inadequate in your business – at least as it pertains to social media and the impact in today’s business world.

Whether it is to support or influence sentiment about your business, or to generate sales, social media even today remains a phenomenon that many businesses are not using – or using effectively.

Did you know that a Fan page is searchable by Google while a group page is not? So why are people still using group pages?

Check out some of your friends Facebook pages – do they also use their pages to drive their business? What does their picture look like? Is it blurry? Is it a webcam photo where their forehead looks 3 times larger than their body?  Is it one of those pictures where all you can see is an eye? Is it a professional photo? Are they mixing up family and business photos and content on the same page? How does that reflect their brand?

What about the florist, who really is an outstanding florist, who posts a picture of themselves with their dog on LinkedIn? How does that support the brand? Have they trained their dog to create flower arrangements?

• 80% of companies use LinkedIn as their primary tool to find new employees. Are you there?
• 80% of Twitter users tweet (post their message) outside of Twitter – what would that mean if you had a great customer experience? How fast would a bad customer experience get around?
• Facebook has over 300 million users. More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.*

That is a lot of content my friends. And a lot of ways you can get your message out to your customers and potential customers each day. Not by “selling” them anything – oh no! By engaging with your customers. By offering content (information). By allowing them to post their own messages on your page so you get instant feedback on how well you are doing – or not. And if someone does have a beef … how quickly and appropriately you respond to resolve the issue (that does not mean deleting posts you do not like!).

If someone searches for your company on Google – do they get only your website?

What if you were coming up on Fan pages? On blog posts? On ezine articles? What if other people were blogging about you? So now your company is showing up on 5, 10, 20 or more pages. Now you are showing a “presence” on the web that goes beyond your web page.

And once you get the hang of it, it is really not that hard to maintain your social networking site as long as you make the commitment. For example, on our own Fan page I am up at 7 am to check posts and add a new post to the page…every day. It might be a link to another interesting article. It might be a quote. It might be a post about an upcoming event.

The point being that I am committed to make our Fan page a page that engages our customers or potential customers. One that has someone saying “I like this quote – it reflects my own life right now” or another commenting on the taste of one of our products.  Or an article that gives a new perspective on an old problem.

Our Fan page (on Facebook) is linked to our Twitter page, which in turn is linked to our LinkedIn profile. So a single post on the Fan page goes to 3 places instantly. Our blog is also linked to the Fan page – so a blog post goes to 4 places instantly. The Fan page is also linked to our website home page – and you can “Become a Fan” right from there.

Other sites are similar – Intent.com posts can be linked to your Facebook AND Twitter accounts. YouTube videos can be embedded in your blog…which goes to your Fan page…which goes to your Twitter account…which goes to your LinkedIn profile…do you see how this works?

There are literally dozens and dozens of networking and social media sites. You should search out the ones most appropriate to your business, and get cracking on setting up your pages.

Here are some more statistics*:

• 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
• 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
• People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them
• 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
• Only 14% trust advertisements
• Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI (return on investment)

Learning about Facebook and other social media is not a “when I have time” activity. It is something to prioritize now, for the life of your company, your cause, your brand.

*Statistics sourced from: Socialnomics by Erik Qualman

VividLife.me Contributor

Alison Prentice RN BScN

President

Creo Mundi Inc.

(905) 571-3663

aprentice@creomundi.com

(New) www.linkedin.com/pub/alison-prentice/10/a91/0

All Natural Creo Mundi Intentional Protein ¾in TIME magazine March/April 2009 and voted Fan Favourite on The Dragons’ Den season 3 (episode 8)! Available in Loblaw Company stores (in the Natural Value Section) across Canada; working on getting this into the US… ask your local stores to carry us!

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