Social Networking for Small Businesses 101
Facebook:
- Financial Investment Firms need an organizational or “Business Page”. This is the official Facebook site for the business and should be ‘friended’ by all employees of the firm with their profile.
- The goal here should be to acquire as many “Fans” as possible.
- This is the site where official updates of the business are posted, updating your “fans”… to include:
- Upcoming events; open houses; social hour; conference…
- Blog postings, related articles, podcasts and videos…
- Pics of the most recent media training, company outing, or birthday celebration…
- Links are important. Links to sources of information, links to bloggers, links that are of value to current and prospective clients.
- Financial Investment Firms will then need to move onto the creation of a “Group Page”. This is specifically targeted to the audience we want.
- This is the water cooler where topics related, but not necessarily directly related to the business can be discussed.
- This is a great site to eavesdrop on your fans discussing different topics and get an idea of what your potential and/or current customers are thinking and discussing. Pay particular attention to gripes, moans, and complaints… These types of comments should be looked upon as a gift from your customer. It provides insight into a potential future loss, which you are now able to thwart and keep as a customer by addressing those needs before culminating to a point of frustration.
- It’s important to facilitate in a group environment and not attempt to drive the conversation. Allow it to travel its own course. This is the only way you’ll be able to acquire accurate data.
LinkedIn:
- This is a professional site for business professionals to network and “link-in” with each other for opportunities, answers to questions, jobs, and for staying abreast of the business “buzz” of the day.
- Instead of fans, you have links, which in turn provide you even more secondary, then tertiary links to potential clients or business partners.
- The most interesting part of this fascinating Web site is where you can see who’s been looking at your profile. For the most part, it indicates the line of work this person is in, and in some rare occurrences, it indicates the searcher by name.
- On occasion, it’s exciting to see who’s been looking at your profile.
- Credibility is the name of the game when it comes to the social media landscape and a great way to garner this is through LinkedIn’s Answers/Questions.
- You can ask a question, then post it for the next week or two to see what kind of responses you get.
- Or, you can answer already posted questions. If your answer is deemed one of the better responses, the person asking the question may stamp you with “the best answer” label, thus marking you as an expert in this particular field.
Twitter:
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