Best Social Media Platform Options.
Hi,
So we covered some of the “rules of engagement” yesterday.
To have the best social media marketing penetration what are your best option platforms?
Today we’ll talk about 3.
The first is the most common, the most spoken about and I also believe the most relational – FaceBook.
It certainly has the biggest following on a per user level. Up around 400 million users.
You can use Facebook in 2 primary ways and whether you use both would depend on your business model.
1 – Using your personal FaceBook wall!
This is what I do and would certainly suit the majority of professionals and small business owners. You are your business so it makes sense.
Don’t be concerned about the fact that people will see what you get up to in life, in fact it can strengthen your position.
Here’s the thing, people want to do business with people. If you’re worried that other people might post photo’s of you in slightly embarrassing poses then you can adjust your privacy settings easily. Controlling who sees what is not at all difficult but showing a bit of the real you can be a good thing.
You can check out my profile – Peter B Butler right here.
Really the only exception to my mind to using the personal wall in business is if you’re representing a large company or corporation.
If you don’t want to mix personal with professional then you’ll have to do it through setting up a “Fan Page”. Don’t create a second profile, this will violate FaceBook’s terms of use.
Point to note: Whoever sets up the fan page, owns the fan page, forever. So make sure you get that right from the get go.
2 – Now, FaceBook Groups and Pages! There are a few good models of how large companies have leveraged wisely setting up an Official or Fan Page. There’s also a few examples of what not to do and we cover that in a later e-series.
Needless to say this style of page is to engage people but also to have them contribute. It’s all very well to set up these pages and most businesses are willing to add new content on a regular basis but there’s nothing better than building a mini community and having it driven for you, by the “fans” or people that “like” it.
Here’s the 3 tips for a successful Fan Page:
- Solve a problem
- Make sure it’s a topical subject
- Engage people so they want to contribute
Here’s an example. We handled the website and marketing for a million dollar new floating hotel venture.
We set up a page for this floating hotel called the Gulf Fishing Lodge. Now we had a few “likes” and people joined the group. The people that joined this group mostly knew or knew of the owners of the accommodation barge or me.
But what I was after was more of a participation or contribution style page that would be “driven” by the fans, people who were passionate about this subject.
So we also set up another page called “Australia’s Best Fishing”. Can you see the subtleness even of the title?
It was still about the Lodge but focussed more on the activity that occurred there. Now the numbers of people passionate about this is huge and the stories of “the one that got away” would drive this page exactly how I intended.
The participation and contribution would be high. A beautiful thing!
Damn frustrating thing is it’s all been put on hold because of EPA and licence approvals, go figure.
Anyway, you get the gist. So how can you duplicate that model for your business?
I still see gaps in how people don’t manage their pages even if they do get it set up right. Remember, it’s about engaging, contribution, participation but still lead generation.
Don’t take your eyes off the ball, this is all still a business building strategy.
Twitter is next on the “best platforms”. Twitter has a fast moving wall and because of its structure it’s not as easy to have “relational” dialogue.
It certainly has its place in your social media marketing arsenal. I’ve done a post recently called “hard wired” and “soft wired” where I talk about the SEO (search engine optimisation) benefits as well as the relational benefit – Hard Wired and Soft Wired! Have a read.
If you wanted to keep your personal and professional “tweeting” separate you can. Having multiple Twitter accounts is acceptable. Really depends if you want your business name or personal name listed in the URL link. I personally run 2, http://twitter.com/smarterwebsites and I post updates to both. I do tend to update my personal named account more but for no other reason than I am my business and I want my personal name to rank high in the search engines.
You can hook up with Peter B Butler socially right here – http://twitter.com/peter_butler
LinkedIn is up next! Do you have an account? If not then get one. There is no “wall” for idle chat, it’s a straight up professional networking platform with some great built in tools and applications.
With some 70 million professionals on board it has huge potential for good exposure and networking opportunities.
The first big benefit with LinkedIn is that the individual profiles get indexed by the search engines.
What does that mean in layman’s terms?
That your LinkedIn profile will get found by the search engines. If your profile ranks then the benefit is that the links in your profile, such as the link to your website will be indexed and rank well.
Here’s where the social media marketing benefits go deeper. Simply put, the more links like this to you and your website the more your position online is strengthened. And that’s just one of the side spin benefits.
We could spend a whole day on LinkedIn talking about groups, networking, recommendations but this is an e-series and not a workshop so let’s move on.
You can check out my profile Peter B Butler right here – http://www.linkedin.com/in/thepeterbutler
In tomorrow’s e-series we’ll cover the next best social media platforms. This is huge so don’t miss it.
Committed To Your Success,
Peter B Butler.
Helping professionals and small businesses leverage the power of
– Websites and Blogging
– Lead Generation and
– Social Media Marketing
Our clients sites soar up the Google charts, get more traffic and have systems to convert leads to clients predictably and easily to make more money in less time! Discover…
– “7 Keys To a Profitable Website”.
– “How To Generate Qualified Leads On Auto-Pilot”.
– “The Secrets To Social Media Success”.
Smart business owners know where the next lead is coming from! Do you?
To Download Your Free Report go to –
E: peter(@)smarterwebsites.com.au
M: 0413 733 272
F: 08 9419 1186
Let’s “Connect Socially”…
Follow me on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/peter_butler
See me on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/peterbutler
Connect at LinkedIn – http://www.linkedin.com/in/thepeterbutler
Leave a Reply