Social Media for small business

Social Media Is Hard

Nov 11, 2013 By Tea Leave a Comment

Social media is hard. I don’t have time for it. I don’t know anyone that is getting any results. I don’t like it. blah blah blah

I heard it all; excuses from small business owners who are still resisting jumping on board with one of the most powerful and cheap forms of marketing. That’s fine. More head start for those who are already embracing it.

Whether you are already rocking it or trying to learn how to do social media right, this article is written for you.

Here are 7 simple steps to increase you influence, impact and income on social media

1 – Keep in mind that social media is about building relationship not campaigns.

Yes, it is a great marketing tool, but over promotion can bite you in the butt (pardon my French). Recent survey of UK Facebook users shows that users dislike the brands that are over-sellsy. Don’t just post stuff and leave. Be engaging with your fans and other pages.

2 – Listening is a skill that pays off

If you talk all the time, you never get a change to get to know the other person. You might not care but if you are running a business, you need to know what your customers think. If you don’t know, how can you market to them successfully? So take interest in others, engage and don’t be that boring person at the party that just stays in the corner.

3 – Don’t act like you’re working for CIA

We’re sometimes so secretive and precious about our life, especially when it comes to using social media for business. Yes, you are allowed to talk about your personal stuff. Of course we want your page to be professional and relevant; however people love to hear interesting personal things. Reveal your interesting habits, hobbies, events you attend. This makes you appear more real and human…

4 – Understand ‘culture’ of different social media platforms and tweak your message to suit.

People who use Pinterest are different to people who Tweet or Digg. Make sure you understand what the social media culture is and tweak your messages accordingly so that they are relevant to users.

5 – First impression counts

Take time and thing about how you want to present yourself on different social media platforms. People are visual. Use cover photos to your advantage; make them interesting, change them regularly and use the form promotion (if allowed). Profile pictures should be your logo, to build your brand awareness and for people to easily recognise your posts.

6 – Think before you type

Fast fingers and anger don’t go well together. Avoid posting negative and derogative comments. Don’t use social media for your ‘venting’. I’m not saying you shouldn’t share your opinions, but remember, it’s there forever. Also, people are attracted to people with great positive energy, so wouldn’t you rather be known as a ‘feel good’ business or a grumpy one?

7 – Test, measure, tweak

Testing what works for your audience is a must. Don’t give up if engagement is slow. It takes time to get the ‘formula right’. Don’t be scared to try new things. Mix things up. Don’t take yourself too serious…and be human.

Oh, and if you stuff up – acknowledge, apologise and make things right. We all make mistake…even Superheros…

If you follow these simple social media tips you will soon see more following, engagement and influence. And once you have trust and loyalty, with that comes more income too.

Sharing is caring – and if you found these tips useful or know someone else who might – go ahead and share!

Oh no, what to post on social media…

Jul 1, 2013 By Tea Leave a Comment

A number one reason why many small businesses fail with social media is because they struggle with creating a compelling, quality content. Many blame lack of time, creativity and imagination and when challenged these reasons quickly fall short.

Many small business owners simply don’t realised that they already have awesome, compelling, quality content that can be ‘recycled’ for social media.

Here are some simple things you can do immediately and boost your social media content.

Use existing content

Most small businesses will have various types of brochures, presentations, product and service descriptions etc. Check for any content that gives your readers solutions to a problem. Re-use the content or use it as starting point for new content.

Blog posts

If you run a blog (and if you don’t you really need to start doing it), check for popular blog posts, identify content that provides a solution to a problem, break the blog post in valuable smaller chunks and educate your fans about that specific problem through sequence of social media posts. Through educating your fans base you are building authority in your own niche.

Write about your products & services

Talking about your products & services doesn’t mean hard sell. By using messages that are educative, creative and ‘non-selly’ you can raise awareness about them and by that create a need for them. Provided you are talking to your actual target market, this is the best way of advertising to them. Use images, create stories around use of your products and services and how they helped resolve problems, that your fan base might be experiencing.

Talk about your business

It’s true that peoples’ favorite topic is them. However they do like to hear great stories. Social media is all about sharing. Start sharing stories about your business, how it started, what drives it, successes, awards and challenges. You’ll be surprised that people read this sort of stuff and engage more when business becomes personal. And you know any small business is a personal affair.

Post images inspiring images

People like to feel inspired and they love looking at images. By sharing what inspires you, you are building rapport and connecting with your fans. This helps you build trust, which in turn helps you make more sales. If they have a choice, people will always buy from a person they know over the one they don’t – even if that means paying more for the same service or product.

I hope this gives you some inspiration for creating content for your social media activities. Remember, the overarching rule: Keep it relevant, engaging, cut back on sales and promotion talk and be yourself. It’s the thing you know how to do the best J

I’m looking forward to hear some ideas about how you overcome ‘writer’s block’ moments. Let us know in comments below.

Until next time

How to use hashtags in Facebook for business

Jun 19, 2013 By Tea Leave a Comment

Are you using them or have you at least noticed them?

I’m talking about Facebook hashtags…

I’m sure you are at least aware that Facebook introduced hashtags earlier this week. (read about it here).

In my last post blog I talked about what hashtags in Facebook mean for business. This time I would like to show you how to use them and why you should be using them in your online marketing.

The most obvious reason is

Reach bigger audience and expend your fan base

Research shows that approx. 88-100 million people are engaging on Facebook during primetime television. By strategically using Facebook hashtags you will expand you reach to a wider audience. Bigger reach means more exposure and more exposure means growing your fan base. All that whilst watching TV – sounds good or what?

Create a buzz about your brand and expand your brand awareness

With strategic use of Facebook hashtags you will increase your visibility and engagement with your brand. When people click on hashtags and go to a page of content specific to that hashtag, they are more likely to engage with this page, as it is relevant to something they like or find important. This means more likes, more comments and also potential clients.

Make it personal

Everyone likes to know that there is a ‘real’ person behind a Facebook page. Especially if you are a small business owner, people want to meet you. With Facebook hashtags you can show your interest, what you stand for, what inspires you…Make it personal; yet stick to your branding. Don’t let the hashtags bite you!

Join a conversation about your brand and promote your events

Using relevant Facebook hashtags in your posts as well as monitoring conversations about your brand helps you create a buzz, respond timely on any adverse conversations about your brand and stay on top of what people are saying about your brand.

Create specific Facebook hashtag for your event and encourage attendees to engage. This will boost visibility of your brand, products and services and number of likes. This kind of ‘likes’ are likely your potential customers. They are already at your event, they liked you, so they are interested in you and what you have to offer. With a bit more schmoozing…you have them J

I hope this sparked some ideas on how to use Facebook hashtags on Facebook for business. I also know that there are some people who hate them and resist using them…are you one of them?

I’m interested to know if you like them or not and why? So don’t be shy…get the debate flowing….

Hashtags on Facebook – What does it mean for Facebook Business Pages

Jun 13, 2013 By Tea Leave a Comment

The months old dispute whether hashtags work on Facebook or not is finally resolved – so far they haven’t, however Facebook announced today that it’s launching ability to follow conversations via hashtags.

The Facebook admits that this is not an innovative function and further explains that “every day, hundreds of millions of people use Facebook to share their thoughts on big moments happening all around them…— people on Facebook connect with their friends about what’s taking place all over the world. …To bring these conversations more to the forefront, we will be rolling out a series of features that surface some of the interesting discussions people are having about public events, people, and topics. As a first step, we are beginning to roll out hashtags on Facebook.”

Facebook statement indicates that hastags will be rolled out gradually and we’ll also see some other new functions of this sort.

From a practical perspective this means that once rolled out, any hashtags you add to your posts will now be clickable. The search bar at the top of the Facebook homepage will also allow users to look for hashtags, and hashtags on Facebook will also tie in to those from other social media platforms such as Pintrest, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr.

This will allow you to add context to a post and indicate that it’s part of larger discussion. By clicking on a hashtag you will see a feed of what other people and pages are saying about a topic or an event.

But there is a big difference in using hashtags in Facebook and it relates to Privacy settings.

From a privacy perspective, hashtags will work similarly to Facebook Graph Search. You’ll only see the comments that you’re authorized to see. This means that if you include a hashtag in friends-only post, only your friends will be able to see it in a hashtag search.

Considering that hashtags are already widely used on other social media platforms and commonly visible on Facebook already, it is highly likely that users will embrace this new add-on. And that can only be positive for Facebook Business Pages as well.

Why You Should Use Facebook Offers

Jan 12, 2013 By Tea Leave a Comment

Facebook is definitely thinking hard how to monetize itself yet keep true to its original purpose. You may or may not be aware that Facebook launched another cool feature for Facebook pages called Facebook Offers. This tool is quite handy for promoting your special deals on Facebook Business Page. It will help you make sales and it will also increase your exposure and brand awareness on Facebook.

Of course there is a cost to use this tool, which is calculated based on how many people you wish to reach. But don’t panic you can start from as little as $5.

So, what are Facebook Offers?

If you own Facebook Business Page you can now offer your fans special offers, sales, discount coupons or other specials. These can them be claimed by fans on you page by clicking on your offer, which then gets emailed to them to redeem it at your store or on your website.

To set up a Facebook Offer you just click on the offer icon in your new post area and follow the prompts. You need to have at least 400 Fans to be able to use this tool.

Why should you do it?

Apart from most obvious reason, making a sale, you will get extremely good exposure of your business to wider network of people on Facebook.

How?

Let’s say you post an offer on your wall . This then appears as a post from your page in your fans’ news feeds. If your fans don’t share or comment on the offer, this is as far as it gets in reaching out.

Now, if you set up Facebook Offer and your fan claims it, the tool will posts this to their news feed, which then gets seen by friends of that fan. Sounds good?

It gets even better. When one of their friends claims the offer, this then shows in their news feed and then if their friends claim the offer….you get the picture. Now imagine how far you can expand your reach with one offer. The benefit: Your brand gets exposed to the whole new network of people.

If you need a proof that this really happens, Facebook released statistics, which show that 3 out of 4 of the most popular Facebook offers were claimed by friends of the fan who was originally targeted.

Will this work for you?

Of course, but you need to consider these things:

You have to have a good offer. There’s no point of offering something that no one wants. Really think about what value you can add to make your offer the best as you can.
You can have the best offer but if you are pitching to the wrong audience, you will not make any sales.
Test, measure, tweak your offers; only then will you know what works and what not.

Remember, Facebook is a new word of mouth and as humans we always want to have what others have, that’s what make Facebook Offers a win-win tool for businesses and users.

Now go, try them out and let us know in comments below what you think about Facebook Offers.