There's a lot of hype and buzz about social media these days and for good reason. These tools are already having a great impact on how businesses and customers engage with one another. This engagement is driving both sales, brand loyalty and referrals. Having said that, if you have yet to get started with social media, there are some important business basics to get right first. I have listed ten in this post here for you to take action on before you start pouring a load of your time and energy into social media.
1. Know your customers
This is key to making sure which social media network and strategy is best for you. What demographic sets do your customers fit into and are these groups engaging on social media? If so, which platforms are they using? Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest are all good, but you may find that your audience favours one more than another.
2. Get your product and pricing right
It's no good driving a footfall to your door if you don't have the right offering for people when they arrive. Do you have products that people will want and prices that fit for them?
3. Know what makes you special
What is your unique selling point? What makes you stand out from the crowd? This will help you attract more customers anyway, it will also drive follower numbers on your social media networks. Be sure to mention what makes you special in your bios when you set up your accounts.
4. Communicate this well with your branding
It's all very well having a great USP, but if you don't tell your customers about it you are missing a trick. Communicating your uniqueness consistently across your marketing will help get your story across when you are using social media.
5. Make sure your website works well
Once you have spent time and money driving customers to your door you want to make sure that they don't leave because of something that you haven't got working on your site. If your website is slow loading, not up to date, has broken links or doesn't deliver on what is expected then people will leave very quickly. It's worth focussing on what you want customers to do when they visit your website and then making sure everything on it funnels them towards this goal.
6. Train your staff and sales team well
Make sure that your team are on message with your brand and understand what the business focus is. Then give them the support and tools to be able to deliver satisfaction to your customers and resolve issues fast and well. If you are delivering products make sure that you have good operations and logistics set up to get your products to customers quickly. Amazon have set the bar very high for all of us. Do your best to make meeting high expectations standard procedure for your team.
7. Have a blog that's useful to your customers
I believe blogging is the backbone to any social media and activity. The content helps drive traffic through these platforms to your website and enhances your SEO strategy. Try to avoid just writing about yourself and selling your products on your blog. People want to read informative articles on subjects that interest them or they find amusing. None of us like feeling sold to (even when it's something we might want to buy).
8. Set up Google Analytics on your website
This is a free tool that you can sign up for at www.google.co.uk/analytics/. Google will send you a short piece of hidden code that you can have your website developer add to your website (this should not cost you more than £30 to do). This fantastic tool will provide you with an incredible amount of data on how many people come to your site, how they navigate through it and where the come from to find you. It will show you which social media sites are driving the most traffic and help you to improve what you do.
9. Plan your social media strategy
Plan out when you will broadcast your social media messages and run tests on the times of day that best suit your audience. Also plan when to check in and read the tweets and messages of those you follow in your industry. Remember to leave them a like, a share, a retweet or a message to let them know you were there and to engage with them.
10. Focus on building a network of engaged fans
The more engaged you are with your loyal customer database and fan network offline the more likely you will be able to take this into your social media arena. You can easily connect with your customer email database when you set up your accounts on these platforms. Good customers who are already online are more likely to share you with their friends and the wider your audience will become over time. It's great to have a lot of followers, but a small network of engaged followers is more powerful. When videos go viral on Youtube it is because of the impact of lots of small groups rather than a few big ones.
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