The way people buy and sell is changing rapidly – much faster than ever before. Younger people have grown up with computers and the internet and use social media as though second nature – so if they are your target demographic for your business – then you need to be on social media.
If your target market is older and less tech-savvy (but don’t always assume these two characteristics go together), then you have time. But not a lot. It will change and the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is people aged over 50.
So it might be worth learning now as a first step how to harness the power of the Web by using SEO (search engine optimisation) to make your website easier for customers to find. The secret is to use Keywords, words that describe your product or service, words that customers actually use when searching online. Unfortunately it’s not as simple as choosing the most popular ones. You have to choose words where your site can compete against others – where if those words are typed into Google, they will produce a page of results where your site sits nice and high in the rankings. Ranking is also helped by fresh original content and having links from as many high quality sites as possible, including blogs. Reviews are also key and Google loves them.
2. Social Media is a waste of my time – I’m busy enough already
Many businesses may initially see the likes of Facebook and Twitter as a waste of time. The benefit of starting a Facebook page or Twitter account and then spending time managing it so that it is effective can seem like a drain on resources. But maybe there is someone within your business who would be more than happy to take this on – or you could outsource it – and there are many organisations who can advise you on the right approach. One of the good things about social media is that you can get an idea of what works for you and it may save you time in other areas.
3. All Social Media platforms are equal
It is important to identify the social media platforms that suit your particular business best (e.g. twitter, facebook, pinterest, instagram, Google +) and this will depend on what your products or services are and importantly, where your customers hang out.
4. Social Media is simply a broadcast channel
When used effectively, social media allows you to engage with your customers and develop relationships – so they keep coming back to you. In fact you should beware of selling too hard in social media – the clue’s in the name – “social”.
No. It complements it. Email remains one of the most powerful ways to prospect for business and you can use your website to collect email addresses to do this. In fact, if you are not already collecting email addresses of your exisiting customers, you should start as soon as possible. It gives you new options.
When your business begins to see the engagement you get from people through social media - that is when the magic happens.
If you would like more advice on what social media can do for your business, give us a call at thebestof Welwyn and Hatfield and we will see how we can help.
