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Social Media is About Engagement

Social media group This is not the time to let customers or profíts slip through your fingers.

You need to make your business stronger, more successful, and ensure your customers are more loyal and responsive to your engagement with them.

Recently, Harry Dent, Jr. said that you should break from provincial geographic thinking and focus on demographics. You should go after customers, able and willing to spend on what you sell, wherever they are, not where you are.

As a result, many marketing, media, technology, and advertising experts use social media forums as a way to champion the use of social media. They suggest a company, especially a small business on main street with a modest marketing budget, become better known, extend their reach, and improve their company's sales using social media.

Here is an example of a teaser message recently transmitted in an email campaign to small and medium sized businesses... the message says, "Social Media is the most explosively growing media of all-time and growing faster with each passing day with no slow-down in sight. It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million users. It took TV 13 years to reach 50 million users. Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months. And iPhone applications hit 1 BILLION in 9 months."

Based on this message, it is easy for entrepreneurs to get seduced into thinking that by using Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, big sales are just around the corner.

However, social media should work in conjunction with traditional marketing and selling techniques such as relationship marketing within "old" social networks, cold calling, vertical marketing, and other effective prospecting activities.

Small business owners should take the time to learn how to maximize their use of social media but they should not rely on it to make their sales. Business owners need to learn how to use social media to engage their prospects and customers and how to get their prospects and customers talking about something that is important to them and the small business. This type of engagement is necessary and will ultimately get prospects and customers to take the action the business owner wants them to take... leading to a sale.

In order to make the best business use of social media, the small business owner needs to prepare a simple strategy with several guidelines to follow in the use of social media. The strategy and guidelines need to pinpoint the specific message to be communicated so that all employees using social media for the business know what direction their messages should take and how they should focus their posts. For example, is the company's focus to improve customer service? Is it to enhance awareness of their products or services? Or, is it to boost their brand recognition? Each of these things would have a different yet consistent message for the employees of the business to follow.

For example, one insuránce company uses Twitter and Facebook to let people know about all the philanthropic things they are doing for the community. All the posts are about events they are sponsoring and contributions they're making. Employees know that they should post information about personal things they're doing for the community, such as volunteering at the local animal shelter or helping out with Habitat for Humanity. With a clear guideline that the social media effort is to elevate philanthropic awareness it is easy for employees to know the kinds of things they should be doing on social media sites. They have a clear focus and a unified purpose.

Another company in the retail industry uses social media to improve customer service. All their posts highlight things they are doing internally to improve the customer experience, what they are doing online to make shopping easier and how they are handling phone inquires to deliver a memorable shopping experience. They also regularly ask customers how they would like the company to improve customer service. With that as the key message, all of the company's employees are focused on problem solving and on making the customers happy.

Therefore, a good social media strategy, with employee guidelines, is far more than a list of good and bad words or topics. Instead, the strategy with guidelines needs to focus on the core message the small business wants to portray along with the best ways to spread that core message.

The guidelines should cover the following topics.

Building Trust
The business employees should use their posts to build a reputation of trust among clients, media, and the public. When they are reaching out to others on social media sites, they should take every opportunity to build a reputation of trust and to establish themselves as a credible and transparent representative of the company.

Being Transparent
When participating in any online community, the small business employees should disclose their identities and affiliations with the organization, clients, and their professional and / or personal interest.

Being Direct
When creating posts and content, the business employees should be direct, informative, and brief.

Giving Due Credít
If the business employees post copyrighted materials, they should identify the original sources.

Self-Editing
The small business employees should always evaluate each posting's accuracy and truthfulness. Before posting any online material, they need to ensure that the material is accurate, truthful, and without factual error. This includes doing a spell and grammar check on everything.

Responsibility
Make sure the business employees know that they are responsible for what they post. Negative or questionable posts should not be tolerated.

Being Professional
When posting comments, the business employees should refrain from writing about controversial or potentially inflammatory subjects, including politics, sex, religion, or any other non-business related subjects. The tone of their comments should be respectful and informative and not ever condescending or "loud."

Privacy
The business employees shouldn't ever disclose proprietary or confidential information. This includes product releases, service updates, and employee information not made public yet.

Obeying the Rules
All business employees should follow local, state, or federal laws and regulations. Ultimately, their online activities will be a reflection on the company.

Today's social media tools are great for business building, provided that the small business owner and their employees know how to use them for the company's ultimate benefit. Therefore, the small business owner needs to determine why their company is using social media sites and then let that purpose be known throughout the entire company. Additionally, they need to implement clear social media guidelines that small company employees can follow in order to further their company's mission.

Ultimately, when small businesses know how they are supposed to use today's social media tools, they can do so with focus and purpose, leading the small company confidently into the communication age.

I hope you enjoyed the article and I trust you found it insightful! Let me know what you think.

About The Author
Until the next time, I invite you to learn more about me and my various activities by checking me out at the links below.

Meet me here: www.facebook.com/mifarrell
Follow me here: www.twitter.com/mifarrell

When not traveling for business or pleasure, Mike operates his own internet marketing company and consulting firm from the mountains of Colorado.

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The 10 Basic Rules of Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing is the act of using social media (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) in order to promote a business.

Many companies will want to start their own social media marketing campaign and create a Facebook page or Twitter account. The problem with is they don't have a clue on how to run a successful social media marketing campaign. Here, I havelisted 10 of the most basic rules when it comes to social media marketing. Follow these rules in order to have successfulaccounts with Facebook, Twitter, etc.

The 10 [basic] Rules of Social Media Marketing

1. Update! I shouldn't even have to list this as a rule, but many forget how important it is. You should try and updatedaily because when consumers visit your page and it has not been updated in over a month, they will assume it is inactiveand decide not to follow your business. Also, they could easily go with your competitor because their page is so active theyfeel that business will give them better service. You do not want that to happen, so update your social media accountsregularly!

2. No pitching! You are not Billy Mays. Therefore, you do not need to yell at consumers telling them to buy your product oruse your business. Social media is meant to connect, not pitch. If your consumers feel they have a connection with your companythrough your Facebook page or Twitter feed, they are more likely to use you over another business that does not make an earnesteffort to connect.

3. Communicate with your audience. If you do not feel it is necessary to reply to comments, answer questions, or join in onconversations on your page, then social media is not for you. You need to be a part of the conversations on your page. If not,you will lose touch with your customers and what they want.

4. Choose Wisely. What you say will forevermore remain public record on the internet. Choose what you post on your pagewisely. I cannot stress that enough. If you hire a company to post for you, be sure to hire someone you can trust. And,remember, if you manage your social media outlets yourself only post what you would want to see on the front page of the NewYork Times (or the Huffington Post).

5. Handle angry customers with class. Some customers will just have a bad day and want to take it out on your page and blameyou for everything. Do not delete any negative comments. Instead, ignore it if it's only one comment (unless the commenthas foul language and is completely inappropriate). If you are in a predicament like Nestle was about a year ago where everyoneprotested on their Facebook page, post an update saying your business is making moves to fix the problem. Never directlyrespond to one individual, you will never win. Also, never make promises you cannot keep.

6. Link to others. If you find something interesting (and relevant) on the web, link it on your Facebook or Twitter page.Explain why you find it interesting (and relevant) and ask for their input. Link to other companies, articles, cool websites,whatever. Just be sure to ask yourself before posting, is this relevant to my business?

7. Share! Don't be afraid to show your consumers what your company's employees are doing when they are not in the office.Take photos of your office picnic, philanthropic event, or even a run/walk for a good cause. These photos create a positiveimage about your company for your consumers. They want to know you're human and don't wear ties all the time. If it's casualFriday in the office, take a group photo of everyone wearing the company polo and post it immediately so others know what isgoing on in your office in real time.

8. Start a weekly trend. If you do something once a week, on the same day each week, your followers are bound to come back thatday every week. For example, if you own a shoe store, every Monday you could post the shoe of the week. Include an image anda promotion for the shoe, such as a percentage off that week only. If you posted every Monday, consumers are bound to checkevery Monday to see what pair is being promoted that week and come into your store to buy. It's a great way to get customersonto your social media pages as well as into your store.

9. Link to your blog. You put so much effort into writing that awesome post about trendy heels for the spring, but no one everreads your blog. Link it on your Facebook, Twitter, etc. Don't do it all the time, because if that is the only thing you do toupdate your social media outlets, people will get bored with you very quickly. But at the same time, don't be afraid to linkback to your blog. You put a lot of hard work and effort into it, and you want people to read it!

10. Spread the word! If you have a Facebook, Twitter, blog, YouTube channel, etc. you really need to tell people. They arenot just going to assume you have them. Put them on your company website, on your business cards, put a sign up in your storesaying "Add us!" with all the little logos for each site next to the copy. Don't be afraid to tell your customers you're onFacebook. If they like you and your product, they will share it on their Facebook account and say, "Hey, I'm a fan of Sally'sShoes and I want everyone to know!"

Allison Kahn is the Marketing Assistant at Princeton MarketingGroup in Greensboro, NC. She has a BA in English Literature fromWesley College in Dover, DE. She has a passion for Social MediaMarketing. http://www.princetonmarketing.net http://www.princetonmarketing.net/princetonmarketingblog================================================================