Most small businesses nowadays are either in the social media sites trying to promote their products online with the hopes that the million users of these platforms e.g. twitter, facebook, myspace, LinkedIn will be able to have a look at their products and services and eventually buy. The social media wave is a very good thing but like any other marketing platform one has to evaluate and find out whether the social media platform is good for their business or not.
Below are a few key things that one might consider as regards to social media platforms:
• Have a Plan – Ask yourself several questions as regards your business. Does it make sense for your business? Do your customers mostly use the social media platforms? One thing to note is that social media is not for every business. Some businesses may do well with social media platforms while others may not.
• Have a clear goal? Objective in mind – What are your business goals and objectives? Do you want to sell your products or do you want to build customer loyalty? Building loyal customer base with social media platforms like Facebook and twitter takes quite some time and one should not expect overnight success. So for a small business that needs to expand rapidly, then the social media may not be the ideal thing for you. On the other hand for a business that wants to build customer loyalty then the social media platforms may be the ideal thing for you.
• Create some time for it – Once you set up a social media presence you should be willing to spare some time to regularly check in. The more time you invest in using social media, the more you will get out of it.
• Monitor Progress and reports – You should ensure that you monitor the progress of the social media platforms. For example some common factors to look out for are: how many visitors go to your site from a social media site, conversion(i.e. how many people clicked through to your site and then a product or service)
• Be flexible – Since there is no magic formula for success, be willing to change from one marketing platform to another. I.e. if you have been using Facebook and twitter for quite some time and there seems to be no significant growth than don’t stick to it, you can use other marketing platforms.
