Social Networks for Business
How do you avoid abusing your social networking friends when marketing your company? Small Biz Tech Girl shares some advice.
Aliza Sherman
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Social Networks for Business
Hi there, The Digital Marketer here, ready to help you put the power of the Internet and technology to work for your business.
Today we’re going to talk about friends – your company’s social networking friends, that is. How can you use social networks effectively to promote your business while making sure you don’t abuse your social networking friends?
Companies of all kinds are participating in social networks to promote what they do. This episode will cover setting up a social networking presence for your company, and in future podcasts, I’ll address social networking pages for company executives or your employees.
Popular Social Networks
Popular Social NetworksNow let’s talk about some of the more well known social networks.
On MySpace, you can find pages for everything from small companies selling baby products to mid-sized companies selling organic foods to major corporations such as automakers promoting their latest car.
On Facebook, commercial businesses are required to set up Facebook Pages with a Capital “P” nstead of personal pages. These pages are free, but they also let people know that the information they’ll find on your Facebook Page will likely be commercial in nature.
There are also affinity social networks you could consider for your company, however, to be effective you need to pick the ones that are most relevant to your business.
If you are a pet products company, pages on Dogster.com and Catster.com could make sense. Yes, those are social networks for dogs and cats. But a pet products company might not fit in on a site like Flixster (F-L-I-X-S-T-E-R) – a social network for movie buffs – or Virb (V-I-R-B) – a social network based around music and entertainment.
If images are an important aspect of your work such as a visual artist or a tourism business, don’t forget to explore a photo sharing social network like Flickr (F-L-I-C-K-R).
Types of Social Networking Friends
As you know, the real power of social networks are your friends, contacts or followers. These friends usually fall into a number of categories:
- People who you actually know and who really are your friends
- People who you meet through people you know
- People who you are merely acquainted with and may or may not get to know better
- People who you don’t really know but may share common interests, and
- People who you want to connect with for business purposes.
When you build a social networking presence for business, chances are most of your “friends” will be people who you don’t know personally but who may be familiar with or want to know more about your company.
The more friends you accumulate on a social network, the bigger your captive audience becomes for your marketing messages, however, you want to be careful not to alienate your friends and followers.
Tips for Effective Social Networking
Here are some of my quick and dirty tips for using but not abusing your social networking friends:
Tip 1 – Make it clear how you’re using your social networks.
Make sure people who “friend” you know what they might be getting from you such as regular promotional messages so they aren’t taken aback when they start receiving them.
Tip 2 – Be consistent.
If you say you’ll send weekly messages, make sure you live up to that promise. Sending random messages can quickly turn people off and all they have to do is “unfriend” you if they feel you’re spamming them, and they’re gone.
Tip 3 – Be real.
Don’t put out promotional notices with painstakingly crafted marketing messages. Be conversational. Encourage feedback and interaction. People friend companies on social networks to get to know more about the company as well as to show their interests by having that company in their friends list. Don’t be too corporate – be human even though the page isn’t for you personally. The more transparent you are about who posts to your company page, the more attractive it becomes to customers and potential customers.
Tip 4 – Give them value.
Marketing messages go down a lot easier with freebies or bennies of some kind. Link to a coupon, provide a discount, notify your company’s social networking friends of a new product or service before you announce to the public. Make it worthwhile to be your company’s friend.
Tip 5 – Respond, respond, respond.
If your social networking friends make the effort to get in touch with you, have a system in place so you can respond in a timely manner. Because of the speed of Internet communications, people expect a near-immediate response, but if you are able to respond within 24-48 hours during the workweek, you’re doing well.
If you don’t have the resources to manage your social networks and the communications that come with them, you’re better off not setting them up.
A social networking page that is not updated on a regular basis can be worse than a stale web site. Social networks are for interaction and networking. The more interesting, interactive and useful your company’s social networking page becomes, the more it can work to brand your company beyond your corporate web site.
Tapping into the power of social networking friends can give your company exponential reach as your friends tell their friends and those friends in turn tell other friends about you. Social networks can be very viral as long as you are doing something worth passing along to others.
For links to the sites I’ve mentioned, visit the show’s website at digitalmarketer.quickanddirtytips.com. You can find me on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, and lots of other social networks under my name Aliza Sherman.
That’s all we have time for today. Visit the show’s website at digitalmarketer.quickanddirtytips.com for links to all of the sites mentioned in the show. If you’d like to ask a question or request a topic for The Digital Marketer, email me at digitalmarketer@quickanddirtytips.comcreate new email .
The Digital Marketer’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Building Your Business With Web Tools is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips network at quickanddirtytips.com.
Tune in for another business boost from The Digital Marketer, the host who’s not afraid to go under the Internet’s hood & get a little dirty!
Resources
Aliza’s Facebook Page – Aliza’s Facebook Page
Aliza’s MySpace Page – Aliza’s MySpace Page
Aliza’s LinkedIn Page – Aliza’s LinkedIn Page
Facebook Pages for businesses – Facebook Pages for businesses
An extensive list of social networking sites can be found at Wikipedia – List of social networking websites.
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