|
With every one seemingly jumping on the social media bandwagon and everyone from your niece to your grandma having a Twitter account should your company be getting involved?
The answer to this is a resounding yes! Social networking is a cost effective way of attracting new customers and invaluable tool for brand awareness if not direct response.
However it does come with a few words of caution.
Controls need to be put in place to ensure what the world sees about you is exactly what you want them to see. Not for instance your entire team drunk and behaving badly at a Christmas party.
There are now so many tools, sites and networks out there that knowing where to start and how to approach it is a minefield. With that in mind we’ve briefly outlined 3 things you can do to start getting your company involved today and have highlighted what you should be carful about.
Start a company Twitter account
Twitter is an excellent tool for publishing small snippets of information known as “tweets” to people who subscribe to be your followers. One of the most advantageous aspects to using Twitter is that instead of having to directly contact individuals and push information to them, people subscribe to receive your updates and you allow Twitter to push the information to them in whatever form they want it.
Setting up a Twitter account is very simple and with a small amount of technical knowledge can be integrated into content management tools and existing websites.
In these cases not only does it provide fresh website content that aids SEO but also provides you with one centralised place to carry out updates.
Some ways in which companies are already using Twitter to help them are:
- Posting product news and updates
- Posting job vacancies
- Creating a micro news system
- Posting special offers and discounts
- Engaging with followers by allowing discussions
Caution: with the simplicity of adding new Twitter updates it’s easy to get drawn into posting without thinking about what you are writing. Care should be taken to ensure your messages, although friendly, are free of slang, well written and professional. Remember although Twitter is seen as a fun tool it still represents your company.
Facebook Fan Pages
With its ever growing community, getting your company a presence on Facebook should be high on your list.
Building a company page not only allows you to post information and invite Facebook users to join your community but provides an area for discussions, photos and user reviews. This page can then be seeded and spread throughout the 150million + users by word of mouth creating a free viral advertising campaign.
Like Twitter, Facebook status updates can then provide an easy way to keep members of your community up to date with what’s new at you company.
Caution: Much like Twitter it’s easy to post messages and photos without giving them much thought. There have been numerous cases of people and companies coming unstuck with inappropriate content so always ensure you check and double check any updates
YouTube
YouTube provides a platform to showcase your company’s products, services and expertise in video form.
Short video clips can be uploaded and shared around the community to provide a viral advertising campaign or a reference point to direct customers to when looking for more information.
Sponsoring a channel takes this one step further by creating a branded community to send your customers to.
A good example of this can be found at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/adidasandlondon2012
Caution: When you upload videos to YouTube you invite users to rate and review them. These can be both positive and negative so always ensure you are happy with the content you are uploading and that it represents your company in the best light.
If you'd like to find out more abotu how social networking and social media could help your company give us a call on 0845 0 347 347 or drop us an email at info@punkyduck.com
|