Get Started with social media for your business

The reasons for this may include perceptions that social media is a fad or yet another marketing gimmick that will not last, or that social media only works for B2C companies. The truth is that social media is here to stay and it’s getting bigger and more influential all the time as a route or channel to market. Furthermore, social media can work for all types of organization, especially professional service firms and small businesses to help them communicate with their customers. Why? Because it levels the playing field for all. Now everyone can compete on equal terms for lead generation, for more sales revenue to manage company reputations and to manage customer relations and service.

I’ll repeat it again as it is so important, social media is right for you whether you are a lawyer, accountant, consultant, actuary, property professional, trade association, insurance broker, facilities management company, printing company, manufacturer, designer, architect, a CEO, Sales Director, HR Manager, Marketing Director, Procurement expert or anything really.  If you have something to say, have expertise to promote, people to find, then social media can help you communicate with your existing customers and to find potential new customers or suppliers.

Why should you use social media?

It would be fair to say that most of us these days are switching off to traditional forms of marketing eg. Advertising (there are social and technical reasons why this is).  Instead we want to have more control over the what information we let into our lives, in short we don’t like our busy schedules being interrupted by un-wanted sales messages.

This is where social media is different.  Social media is a platform where we can voluntarily engage in conversation with people we choose to have a dialogue with.  We now have control.  The premise of social media is that it is a two way conversation, you share information or content of value for people to consume in their own time and through this exchange you build relationships with interested people who have expressed their explicit permission to engage and so the process continues.  Accepted social media convention is that you should actually spend more time listening than talking (apply the 80/20 rule).  

In a B2B context social media is a reference for online platforms and networking spaces where you can secure and leverage many benefits and achieve your marketing goals such as;

·   Generate and engage in mutually beneficial business conversations

·   Assess what your competition are doing

·   Generate new and qualified leads and build your sales pipeline 

·   Build your personal profile by demonstrating expertise and sharing knowledge

·   Establish personal characteristics and strengthen the company brand

·   Deliver excellent customer service

·   Forge (new) relationships with suppliers, intermediaries/referrers, existing clients 
    and potential clients

Your social media strategy, at a personal level, is about establishing and enhancing your own “eco-system” of influencers, supporters and customers who will enable you to be successful and who will help to endorse your expertise, services and products to their network of contacts and customers.  

It is as simple as that, social media marketing is right for you and your business.

If you are interested to find out how you can start to use social media in your business then please do get in touch and I’d be happy to discuss what options might be right for you. You can email me at [email protected], or find me on LinkedIn or Twitter