Does my Business need Social Media?

“Simple answer: yes!”

Love it or loathe it, social media is where today’s customers can most readily and cost-effectively be reached, making it a key focus of any good marketing strategy.

Even where marketing outreach is traditionally ‘Business to Business’, the same inescapable truth applies.  In 2020, LinkedIn is to B2B marketing what Facebook and Twitter are to consumer advertising and embracing social media for business will only give your organisation a firmer foothold of its relationship marketing.

In this cynical age, consumers trust independent recommendations far more than that of traditional business advertisements.  That’s why many big corporations spend small fortunes each and every year employing cynical tactics to insidiously influence their ‘independent’ review status on influential websites.

Utilising social media for business means recruiting fans and brand advocates, via the creation, curation and syndication of regular and interesting content.  By treating your loyalists well and providing them with a valuable experience, you develop a social media army willing and able to spread the good word about your goods or services.  Think of investment in social media as nurturing a congregation of unpaid, evangelical travelling zealots for your business.  Sound good?  Praise the Lord!

So, what do we mean exactly by ‘social media’ and what’s the key underlying strategy to maintaining a social media business presence that will ultimately produce results?

To blog or not to blog?

A company blog usually resides on the business website itself, meaning that any visitor to one of your business blog posts actually enters your own piece of online real estate.  You have the full and undivided attention of your potential clients, free of distraction and competition.

Sharing your latest blog content via social media brings traffic to your own website.  Capturing subscribers to ensure repeat visits (either to the blog itself or to your social media pages) is the name of the game, and absolutely fundamental to relationship marketing.

Even if your business isn’t selling directly via your webpage, maximising the inbound traffic to your blog (and subsequently the other areas of your own site) means supercharging your brand awareness and image, which eventually equates to an increase in business and affects your bottom line.

Best of all, Buzzwords is on hand to take the toil out of the process for you.  Find out more about our professional blogging service.

“Sigh….do I really have to blog?”

Of course not.  Blogging isn’t necessarily for everyone and indeed, many businesses won’t have a lot in the way of interesting topics to shout about, much less captivate a wider audience, even allowing for our professional copywriting skills.  Few people will have any interest, for example, in reading all about the ins and outs of a plastics manufacturing business.

So if blogging is a no-go, how else can you increase your business visibility through social media?

The usual suspects:

         

In the current climate, Facebook is a must.  Twice as many unique Kiwi users are registered on Facebook than on Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and Blogger put together, and 75% of all New Zealanders aged 35 – 54 will use Facebook in an average month (Nielsen Online Ratings, September 2013).  A Facebook presence is the bare minimum we would encourage our clients to invest in and usually accounts for over 50% of the increased exposure businesses gain from exploiting social networks.

Twitter (especially in retail) and LinkedIn (B2B) are the next most effective channels (dependent on industry and goals), whilst Google+ pages rank high in Google search engine results (for obvious reasons).  If your area of business is particularly visual (eg, graphic design, arts and crafts) it also pays to have a presence on channels such as Pinterest or YouTube.

We respect that each client is uniquely different and in recognition of this, we take the time to get to know the values, voice and vibe of each of our customers, so we can counsel as to most relevant social media channels appropriate to their brand.

Once a social media plan is agreed, your business will then be able to utilise the selected online spaces to:

Niche nooks & crannies

Many businesses operate in niche, specialist fields.

Dependent on your industry, it can sometimes pay dividends to experiment away from (but in addition to) the ‘big boys’, with your business social media activity.

Outsource your social media management to Buzzwords, and we will apply our skills and experience to unearth those hidden online corners of the internet where your target audience dwell.  We then develop and maintain a presence in those spaces, from community forums to specialist social network tools, and work to develop your reputation and increase your visibility.

Convinced?  Head here to learn how Buzzwords social media management services can work for your business.