Social media is great for business.
But as great as it is, even we’re not going to pretend that social media should be the sole element of your marketing efforts. Social media is great on its own, but it’s even better when paired with other marketing efforts and word-of-mouth that make the sum of your marketing more effective.
After you’ve been on social media for a while, we recommend doing something we call jumpstarting your social media. Here’s a look at how (and why) to jumpstart your social media:
- Add social media icons/links to all of your company’s email signature lines. In addition, add icons to company newsletters, printed ads, and billboards—you can even say “Find Us on Facebook/Twitter” on radio and TV spots, if you have them. In other words, you want to make clear on any other material that you publish and release—online or off—that your company is active and engaged on social media.
- Let all of your staff know that you’re on social media. This seems like an easy one, but especially with big businesses, it’s easy for one side to not know what the other is doing. Because of the way that social media works (it is, after all, social), the more that all of your employees are in the know about your social media presence, the better.
- Regularly follow your own accounts and the accounts of competitors. Knowing what’s going on in the space will make you more competitive.
- Spread the word about your social media efforts wherever you can. Tell friends, family, coworkers, and anyone who may be even remotely interested that you have a blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. This also means encouraging your staff to share your social media, and asking employees to provide photos and other information about company events. Big events are great for social media, and everyone loves pictures.
- Amplify your success. After a few months, you’ll probably have both a good body of work and a good following. At that point, it would be a good idea to start including your blog’s greatest hits, or memorable events from Facebook and Twitter, in your newsletter. Again, the more people who know about your social media—and the body of work on your blog—the better off your business is.
As a business, one of the most important things about you being on social media is that your customers and potential customers actually know that you’re on social media.
If you’re doing things right on social media, you’ll already be following a lot of your potential customers, anyways. But by letting everyone you know (especially within your company) that you’re on social media, your chance of getting the right message out there becomes that much greater.
Is social media good on its own? Sure. But a little jumpstart never hurt.
Image credit: CC by redjar
