By Craig Chadburn, Social Media Manager, BT Global Services.
Social media has taken over the world. It’s how we get our news, communicate with friends, market our businesses… the whole list would take up this entire blog post. The fact is, it’s an important medium, because most people now use social media in one form or another.
Despite this, not every business has a social media strategy and lots of business people still don’t know how to effectively use it to their advantage. You’ve probably heard messages in the media (or from management) implying that without a social media presence you’re hopelessly outdated; a ‘social dinosaur’; extinct. It makes nurturing a social presence sound like such a monumental task that it might put you off starting. But it’s not completely true.
Rest assured, improving your social media presence doesn’t have to be a herculean task; it’s all about building it up slowly. My advice would be to start now. The longer you leave it, the further you will have to catch up and if you start now it should be relatively easy to get going.
A good social media plan shouldn’t involve splashing up as much content as possible as quickly as possible, just for the sake of it. Having a social media presence is great for business and individuals, but only if you develop it in a careful, methodical, well-thought-out way. How do you do that? Well, it’s a lot easier than you’d imagine. Here are four simple steps to get you well on your way to a lively social media presence.
Step one
Go back to basics. Set yourself small, achievable targets and deadlines. Plan to get your profile live or updated this week. You could set yourself a target of reaching 50 new Twitter followers by the end of the week, or you could decide to share two articles on LinkedIn this week. Whatever you decide, the key is making sure that your targets are doable. Start small, and grow.
Step two
Take a step back and have a good look at your profile. Ask yourself: what impression is this giving to my customers? What about the profile makes people want to connect with it? Would I follow this person if I found them on the internet?
Doing this every now and again will make sure that your profile develops alongside your social media skills.
Step three
Make sure that your profile has a reasonable image. It sounds like common sense, but you don’t want a picture from your last Christmas party on your company’s Twitter profile. Most people scan content — having an image makes you very visible and images are easy to remember.
Step four
See how it’s done: look at what other people are doing. If you’re still unsure of what kind of content you should be posting or how often, just take a look at other businesses or relevant figures from your industry. Following them is a great way to build connections, and learning from them will set a good example for your own strategy.
A professional start
If you’re from a business background and not sure which social platform to start with, I suggest going with LinkedIn. It’s a professional platform, with professional people and professional conversations. Build your experience there before moving onto something like Twitter, which has a larger mix of content.
The numbers game
When you start on LinkedIn, look to spend five minutes a day observing what is happening. A good baseline to aim for is 150-200 connections. Get there and you’ll start to snowball, and should be aiming to get more than 500 connections within six months.
Whichever strategy you use to hit the social media scene, make sure that it caters to your business and its needs. And remember, it’s never too late to start using social. The sooner you do, the bigger the benefits.
Head over to my LinkedIn page to see how I go about using social media, and connect with me to continue the conversation. If you’re interested in other areas of social media like blogging, commenting, building relationships or promoting content, then have a look at my previous blog posts.
