Social Media Posting

If your company does not use social media, it is one of the few. There are so many platforms that fall under social media, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogger, MySpace, Foursquare and Vimeo. Frankly, attempting to use more than one gives me a headache. However, each option has it strengths and weaknesses, along with unique functions. According to a report from InSite Consulting, 80 percent of American companies use Facebook, 45 percent use Twitter, 48 percent have a presence on LinkedIn and 31 percent use YouTube. The survey also found that six out of 10 companies said they listen to consumer conversations on social media. Eight out of 10 companies said they answer client questions and complaints via social media. Many local women use social media to assist in advertising their business or company. Most of them have a good grasp on Facebook, but not quite as much working knowledge on the others. I spent quite a bit of time looking over the Facebook pages of businesses in our area that were created and run by women. My findings were this: Every business uses it differently. Some posts are advertisements, some were links to articles, some used the polling option quite often, and some were just randomly posting a myriad of all the above, including pictures. When I spoke with several women about their pages, all were excited about using social media to help their businesses, but the majority also admitted: “I use Facebook, but I don’t really know how to get traffic there, and I don’t know how to find the ‘friends’ with the potential of becoming customers." When it comes to posting to benefit your business, I turned to Sheryl Barlow of CWS. CWS has a Social Media Strategist, Jonny Yucuis, who shared a few best practices: • When posting, post information that is relevant to your followers, and is not "salesy." When using social media, it is all about the conversation. Make sure you understand what types of interactions would be valuable to your business or company. • Create posts that get engagement and capture the attention of customers and potential customers. Ask questions or ask for opinions so your followers leave comments on your page. When people do leave posts or messages, engage in the conversation with them. • Show your business’s personality. Generally, this is a place to let your hair down and have some fun. • Text-only posting is boring! Share photos and graphics; both get more notice than just text postings. • Engage your business page with other pages. If they “like” you, reciprocate and go “like” them. Leave comments on their page, as well. • Post consistently, but do not become overwhelming. On that note, I did see a few pages that had postings every couple of hours; some of the postings were irrelevant and had no point. • Keep your text posts short and to the point. Proactively share things that are interesting, but keep in mind quantity doesn’t mean quality. It is clear that social media is a relatively cost-effective tool that can increase your customer base and help get your business out in front of a huge audience. Following the guidelines above can help you become a better user of the tool. And, having been witness to posts that were not meant for the public’s eyes, my favorite rule to using social media: Think before you post.